Purity of the Shadows
by Chrystel Malfoy-Potter
Summary: NaNoWriMo 12'. The Court is there to rule and control Shadow Magic. A person can use said magic if he, or she, had suffered an extreme psychological trauma. Having a piece of Horcrux inside of you and dying is a perfect example. Thus, the Ward comes to the Court by Destiny. Although, the Ward isn't just anyone … look out Hogwarts!
1. Prologue

**An: Hello to all. You may be all wondering why the heck am I doing another story while "Memories" and "****From Brookland to Brecon**" are still in progress? The answer is simple … IT'S THE NANOWRIMO! Yahooooooooo  


**For all of those wondering what NaNoWriMo stands for, it means Nation Novel Writing Month. During this whole month of November, I will have to write a novel that I only planned with a minimum of 50, 000 words. 30 days of stress! 30 days of forcing myself to write. So please excuse the little mistakes. I'll correct them when I'm done.  
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**So leave some reviews to encourage me.  
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**Disclaimer: I don't own any form of Harry Potter, no Yu-Gi-Oh.  
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**Summary: The Court is there to control Shadow Magic. One half is Light, while the other is Dark. To be able to use Shadow Magic, you must have suffered an extreme psychological trauma. Having a piece of Horcrux inside of you and dying is a perfect example. Thus, the Ward comes to the Court by the Moirae (the Fates).**

**Except, the Ward isn't just any person, he is already touched by the wings of Destiny through a prophecy. Watch out Hogwarts, Harry Potter is there with an alternative magic to be backed on.**

**I now present to you … Purity of the Shadows.  
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**Prologue**

Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropus. The Three Weavers. The Three Sisters. They are also know as the Moirai, the Fates in Greek Mythology. Sometimes, a human would get a glimpse of what they weaved, mostly women. However, the Moirai intertwined the new strings with each birth to replace the cut strings from the death in order to form an image that a Seer wouldn't be able to see.

While the Sisters are mostly known in Europe, due to the wide-known Greek Mythology and way of thinking, they have an Egyptian equivalent which is Ma'at, the one regulating the stars, seasons, and the actions of both mortals and the deities. She was the one who set the order of the universe from chaos at the moment of creation. Needless to say that it was rare to have international deities work together, but for the Fate of one little boy, that was what happened.

One little boy whose Fate was changed by a drunken Seer who had saw something, but precipitated events by unknowingly revealing it before it was time. Changing the image that Lachesis was weaving, forcing Clotho to 'borrow' the threads from those not under her command, while Atropus was furious to see that one of her threads hadn't been cut as it should be. That was when they were contacted by Ma'at.

The Norms that protected the UK couldn't do anything. Urd's job was to make sure that the Past stayed that way, while Verdandi could not intervene with the Present as she lived with it. Skuld was no where to be at the moment as she roamed the United Kingdom to rectify the Big Picture. That was why the Moirai intervened in the first place.

Fortunately for the boy in question, one of his mother's relatives belonged to the Court under Ma'at's protection. Which allowed the Deity to propose her aid to the Fates to keep everything in balance.

That was how the Ward was brought to the Court. Via different divinities, Destiny was kept on course as it should be.

But, there are to many different alternate universes for it to be the one you know. That it why, this is only one of the stories of a future, a past and a present that may, could or would have happened.

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**An: A special encouragement to a fellow Nanowriter: Dragon Silhouette. Hope she'll do well with her novel.**

**Stay tune for a very soon chapter 1: Meeting.**


	2. Chapter 1: Meeting!

**AN: Next chapter is up! Hope you guys like it.  
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**A little tidbit that Tokyo Tensai has pointed out. He/She got the impression that it looks like "King's Jackal" by esama. It is true that I got the idea from her unfinished work, but this story will be going in a very different direction. The only thing I can't really take credit for is the creation of the Court and how people can use Shadow Magic.  
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**Review replies to those that don't have an account on . [or to lazy to login]  
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**Guest: Thank you.  
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**pinkS1014: Hope you'll like the new chapter.  
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**Enjoy the story folks and please leave a little review for little old me.  
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**Chapter 1: Meeting**

Mokuba Kaiba didn't had a happy childhood. Not a terrible one, neither a happy one. He was one of the lucky ones thanks to his big brother Seto. When their relatives had taken all their money and left them at the orphanage, Mokuba couldn't understand what was happening, only that he had his brother with him. He had been to little to comprehend.

Then Gozaburo came to the orphanage. A multi-billionaire wanting to adopt a child? Well, more likely for a PR stunt, but it was the perfect opportunity, a perfect future for the lucky one. Seto, knowing that they would only have one chance, had studied who he was with the limited knowledge at the orphanage. The father and sister helped his older brother as best as they could, charmed by his innocent questions.

Gozaburo's weak point was chess. Seto's strong point was chess. That game was the beginning of their lives becoming hellish. Gozaburo wanted the perfect heir. Being tricked to accept two wasn't part of the plan but he could work with that. That was when everything went from hell in a handbasket. Especially for Seto, while Mokuba was spared the worse.

One of his best memories was of a tutor who had tried his best to help Seto. The way he had done was by taking care off Mokuba that best he could. Mr. Bluebells made sure that both brothers were kept in contact as much as he could, keeping Seto informed the best he could with photos, messages and drawings without President Kaiba knowing. He couldn't do anything more as it was his word against President Kaiba.

That lasted for only three months. But they were the best three months that Mokuba had ever lived during those six years of hell. Mr. Bluebell was the main reason for Mokuba's choice of career: an English Teacher. Which lead him here in Little Winging, Surrey at the local primary school. He was the English Teacher for the past three years in that school.

Normally, Mokuba would try not to remember those five years and nine months while living with Gozaburo. However, a young boy in his class was making serious flash backs. Harry Potter, age five, was displaying some of the signs that he had when young. Meek, shy, distrustful of adults, … he could go on with those symptoms. Another thing that he noticed was the way the Dursleys acted. Dudley, classic alpha bully, had his parents encourage his behavior towards others, especially his cousin. The weird thing was that nobody seem to notice what was happening towards the boy.

Mokuba had a theory for that. Little Winging was a respectable neighborhood, with no prior record of violence, on top of that, the Dursleys were known as a decent family before the nephew came to be. Besides, it was not as if Harry was being physically abused. No, it had to be emotional, just like his older brother and he were.

Nothing that he could prove. He was an outsider, a stranger to boot from a different nationality, not to mention he was a young man of twenty-six. The only thing that nobody knew about him was his link to his brother, the number three richest man in the world. The last fact didn't please his brother, Maximillion Pegasus was number two. That was unacceptable.

Said man was due to come to the school in a couple of days for a publicity stunt. A publicity stunt where he would come in Little Winging Primary School, take one of the students 'randomly' to spend the day with he or she, before bestowing them a Duel Monster deck.

All of the kids were really excited. One of them was Harry Potter. It would be a bit obvious to say that Harry was one of his favorites. When the young boy wanted to stay in class during recess, Mokuba would bring him some books to read and stay where he was. When it was Lunch time, teacher and student would share it together. Mokuba couldn't prove anything, but he would make sure that Harry wouldn't feel trapped at school. He even hoped that the young boy would confide in him if Harry would trust him enough. But that was not enough.

So, when came the day when Pegasus was to arrive, Mokuba made sure that Harry would be with him early morning. The Dursleys being under the impression that Harry needed some remedial classes. Mokuba really wanted to give Harry something nice. If he needed to use his 'connections' then so be it.

Except, something else happened when President Pegasus arrived at Little Winging Primary School. As someone who had once possessed a Millennium Item, Maximillion was more attuned to Shadow Magic in a person. The fact that he was the owner of the Millennium eye was what made him see physically the tendrils of darkness around the young boy with startling green eyes. They danced around the boy, gentling caressing the child like a mother soothing a child. From time to time, the tendrils of shadows would go and probe — for lack of better word — the younger Kaiba before going back to the boy. The shadows would ignore the other teachers around them, as if they would bad to the boy.

Seeing something flicker, he glanced down at his feet. One of the shadows had touched him gently. Most likely to see what his intentions were to the child.

The billionaire locked eyes with the youngest of the Kaibas. The younger man nodded slightly. Something was up, something to do with Court business. The look took a few seconds. Just enough time for them to shake hands as they were introduced by the principal. Then, Harry was introduced to the tycoon. The boy was a bit starry-eyed. It was not every day that he met somebody important.

Later that day, the two of the would meet. Something big was up, something that his brother's business rival knew concerned the Court. And that, was either very good or very bad when it came to Shadow Magic.

—PotS—

When Mr. Kaiba had asked him to come to school a bit earlier than normal, Harry hadn't realized what his day would be like. The older man had always been nice to him ever since the beginning the year. As if he suspected what Harry was going through. But that was impossible, nobody had noticed what was happening at his relatives' house. So how could Mr. Kaiba know?

Then, Mr. Kaiba had asked him to come early to school the day President Pegasus was to arrive. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia were very happy to hear that he needed remedial classes during the day. Hence why they agreed to drive their good for nothing of a nephew at seven in the morning. A good two hours before class was suppose to start that specific day.

Mr. Kaiba was at the gates, ready to take Harry from the Dursleys. Once the car left, Mr. Kaiba turned towards him to ask. "Did you have breakfast? Or if you did, are you still hungry?"

Of course, Harry didn't had a very good breakfast. Some brown-sort of bread that Aunt Petunia said was good for his health. It wasn't very good, so Harry was still hungry. He nodded eagerly. His teacher smiled at him before bringing him to the classroom. There, two blueberry muffins and two chocolate muffins were on the desks. "Which one would you like?"

"Chocolate please."

They sat face-to-face on one of the craft tables. Mr. Kaiba was doing some small talk, like if he was excited for the day that was to come. He even explained to him what Duel Monsters were exactly. Some of the rules seemed a bit complicated to Harry, despite that, his teacher didn't seem angry at the tentative questions. Mr. Kaiba had even brought out his own deck to show him some examples, like chain reactions concerning Magic and Trap cards.

He even allowed Harry to touch some of his cards. The green-eyed boy didn't understand, but two of those monsters seemed to have winked at him. Des Koala and Big Koala seemed to have moved. But, maybe it was because they were his favorites that he thought that they moved. He didn't dare say anything to his teacher.

When it was eight, Mr. Kaiba walked them back at the gates to meet the President. When the car arrived, Harry felt a bit shy, but didn't dare move. Yet, one the white-haired man started to shake hands of his teacher, something inside him told him that the person in front of him was safe. Just like his teacher when he first met him.

The rest of his day went quite well. Better than quite well, it was one of the best days of his life. Mr. Kaiba kept him by his side, far away from Dudley-the-Pig and his 'friends'. Where Mr. Kaiba was, Mr. Pegasus wasn't to far away as well. (The man had insisted to call him that instead of President Pegasus, when he was introduced at the Assembly in front of everyone.) The man didn't gave him a weird vibe, nonetheless Harry felt the man's gaze on him every time they were together.

At the end of the day, he was the lucky boy to receive the Duel Monster Deck. The happiness at receiving such an honor was tainted by the look of pure disgust or jealousy from Dudley. That didn't body well for him when he would come back home.

It would seem that his good luck would continue. When the Dursleys came back to pick up Dudley, not to mention Harry in front of such an important person, they only picked up one person: their son. Mr. Pegasus wanted to speak some more with the lucky winner. Dudley's and Harry's teacher would act as a chaperone, much to Vernon's and Petunia's relief. Harry's as well since he wouldn't have to see his family yet. A little more time to keep the deck on his person.

The trio went to a good restaurant. The young boy felt slightly out of place with his slightly to big clothes. He had never went to restaurant before, so the intimidation factor went climbing higher. Mr. Kaiba was there with him, so everything should be alright.

Mr. Pegasus was very nice. He would talk to Harry as an equal. Not condensing, like most adults he met. Mr. Kaiba even helped Harry choose a nice dinner from the menu. All in all, everything felt perfect for Harry.

Then, he was dropped another bomb of good news by Mr. Pegasus. "I was thinking of a helicopter tour of London. Especially tonight since the weather forecast tells me it will be perfect."

Even if he really, really wanted to accept it, there was one little obstacle that was in the form of the Dursleys. They would never allow him to go on a helicopter ride. If he could go on that ride, then maybe he could share something with the children at school that wouldn't be tainted by the Dursleys, especially Dudley.

One little call from Mr. Pegasus himself erased that obstacle. He even got them to agree to let Harry sleep at a hotel — all expanses payed of course — while Mr. Kaiba had agreed to play the chaperone again. Harry was ecstatic as to how the day was to continue.

As Mr. Pegasus had told him, the night was beautiful for a last-minute tour on a helicopter of London. After an hour in the sky, under the light of a crescent moon, Harry found himself at the entrance hall of a hotel called the Langham.

It was a very tall building — at least in his eyes — with yellow stones that seemed golden in the light. Checkered marbled of black and white greeted him, with a ceiling so high that he had to crane his neck to truly see. Crystal chandeliers were elegantly spaced between the colons, while on the ground were big white stone vases with plants that sprawled out to add some color to the decor.

The two adults didn't even comment on how the hotel looked, nor at the gaping looks that Harry had. In fact, Mr. Pegasus just calmly strode over to the Desk to order another suite to be readied for the night. Harry didn't notice how quickly the staff went into action for one of the suites to be organized. He was to absorbed by his surroundings.

If the green-eyed boy thought that the entrance hall was spectacular, then the Infinity suite was even more impressive. Six rooms counting a Dressing Room and Kitchen, seven if you counted the balcony. The bathroom was even more impressive with the bath room that had a bathtub wider than at the Dursleys, a bit like a pool in his childlike eyes.

The bed was so soft that Harry practically melted inside the mattress. The covers were heavy, soothing covering his body with warmth. He fell asleep nearly instantly, the day being full of emotions. His only wish was that this wasn't a dream, for this was the best day of his life.

He didn't know that his life was about to change while he slept.

—PotS—

Something was up. Pegasus had never acted like that, of that Mokuba was certain. To act without thinking, either Pegasus had a plan or some minute information came into account. The visit to the school and the deck given, that he could understand, but the restaurant, the helicopter ride and now the hotel suite!

He waited only for Harry to fall asleep before going to the living room where Pegasus was. "Alright, explain what you are doing."

The white-haired man chuckled slightly. "Calm down, Mokuba. I can tell you that this is important." He gestured the Japanese to sit down. "Would you like a drink before we start this discussion?"

"Do you have a good Scotch?" He needed something a bit strong for what was to come, he could sense it.

Pegasus, himself, served him a glass of scotch without ice. Mokuba raised an eyebrow at how the man knew how he took it. The older man shrugged. "Being an ex-owner of the eye gave me some advantages, like sensing how a person will take his alcohol once I got the name."

"Of course." The sarcastic tone could be clearly heard from the younger man. "So let's cut the small talk and get down to business. What is Harry to the Court?"

"Before we get into that, answer me this little question. Do you think that boy is being abused?" Worry tinged the sentences, as if the answer would change the outcome of the conversation. Mokuba didn't even want to think as to why Pegasus would think that with just a day of watching Harry.

"I'm not to sure on the physical part, but I know on the psychological part. Since I don't have any proof, I could not intervene. Why?"

"As you know, I used to posses the Millennium Eye which gave me the powers to read minds. However, ever since I lost it, only two things remained. The ability to sense people's moods, if I concentrate, and to see Shadow Magic around a person."

"The boy can use Shadow Magic, can't he?" It was more of an affirmation than a question. "How did the Shadows react around him for you to deduce that he could be abused?"

"Protective and defensive. The boy trusts you so they touch you from time to time for comfort. They would shy away from other adults or children. Especially that fat blond boy and his gang. The shadows are especially vindictive against them. Their only saving grace is that the boy is unconsciously holding them back from attacking them. I believe that he knows that he needs them to live deep down. Otherwise, his family would had been killed when he was still a baby."

"You got all that with just a day of observation?"

"I've got more than twenty-two years of experience, eight of those with the Eye and fourteen without. I had the money, the power and the time to get as much information that I needed. Meeting your sister-in-law helped a lot as well in learning to control those powers. So of course I could see all of that in a day of observation. But I only know some raw facts, not everything. How long have you known the boy?"

"Two years through rumors and three months in my class. He is a lonely little boy who lost his parents at fifteen months, while his relatives love to spread some nasty rumors about him and his parents. Inspire of all those nasty stuff they propagate, the Dursleys are known as a decent middle-class family in the neighborhood. Vernon works at Gunning, a drill company, as a manager. Petunia volunteers herself a lot at the local community. As for Dudley, look up the word for bully in the dictionary and there you will find him."

"I see. So Harry would be happy if we took him away from his 'family'?" If that was the case — which seemed very likely — than everything could work out.

"I would think so. Can the Court help him?"

"The fact that the boy can use Shadow Magic makes him automatically a subject to the Court. After that, all depends on how the court battle will go."

Pegasus could have just said 'yes' without to many words. "Should we contact the Pharaoh now?"

"He will be up after hearing what we have found."

"Should we phone him?" The older man just took out a Duel Monster card.

The card was blank. No stars, no description, the only information you could deduce was that it was a monster card with it's color. The image showed a Pschent — the Double Crown of the Pharaohs. At the intersection of the Red Deshret part — representing the Lower Egypt — with the White Hedjet part — which represented the Upper Egypt — was the Uraeus, the Egyptian cobra, while above was the Wadjet, the Egyptian Vulture.

The card felt powerful to those that understood what it represented. "The Pharaoh." Intoned Mokuba as he touched the card.

The card shown brightly as it levitated itself of the table. The image turned white before a beam shot out to compose the image of Atem, their Pharaoh, leader of the Court, otherwise known as Yami Yugi before they discovered his real name.

"You rang?" Purple eyes twinkled in amusement.

"We've got a potential shadow wielder, very young and possibly abused." Pegasus learned the hard way to respect the Pharaoh. Once his loyalty is given, it would not be taken back.

Purple eyes turned serious. "How old?"

"Five years, going on six." The teacher answered.

"How powerful is he?"

"Powerful enough for the shadows to take care of him. When I arrived, they made sure to know what my intentions were to the child. For now, the boy is protecting his relatives unconsciously but I don't know how long the situation will stay the same but not for long if the situation continued."

"So, you would both recommend to take the boy in our custody? You know that the position of the Ward can only be offered to a person who has ties to the Court? That means you have to find a relative of the boy's that is a subject of the Shadow Kingdom for us to make a legal claim."

Mokuba smirked at that. "I may know someone who holds that position. But since I didn't know that Harry was one of the Court's subjects, I didn't do anything about that information."

"Who then?"

"Why, our very own Librarian is a very distant cousin on Harry's mother's side of the tree. You do know what that means, don't you?"

Maximillion Pegasus rarely laughed, this, however, was one of those occasions were he did. "Of this is rich. The boy will be corrupted with the Thief and the Priest. At least we'll know he'll be in good hands and protection."

Atem nodded. "How did you get by that information?"

"When I thought that Harry could be abused, I tried to find a possible relative with his medical file. The school nurse took a blood sample and I used the Kaiba database to try to find a match."

The Pharaoh sighed. "Why am I not surprised. Very well, permission granted to start a law suit if you need. Custody battle will have to wait until the Librarian travels to London with his mates."

Mokuba nodded. "Yes sire."

"One more thing. You called the child many time Harry. What is his full name?"

"Harry James Potter, son of Lily Potter and very distant cousin to Ryo Bakura."

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**An: A special encouragement to a fellow Nanowriter: Dragon Silhouette. Hope she'll do well with her novel.**

**Stay tune for a very soon chapter 2 (gotta find a title!) While you guys wait for it, how about a little contest? Can you guys guess who the Thief and the Priest are? (Well, at least one of them is obvious ^^v)  
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	3. Chapter 2: Explanations!

**AN: Here is the new chapter. I thought about skipping directly to Harry's first year at Hogwarts, but this came out instead, some explanations on the situation.  
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**For all of those who participated in the little contest, I am sorry to say that many of you mistook Seta Kaiba as the Priest. A good guess (which would also appear logical) but he isn't the Priest.  
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**Slight warning of slash mentioned. But no visuals or anything.  
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**I also took the liberty to name Yami Bakura, since Bakura is Ryo's last name, on top of which Yami Yugi is named as well. See notes at the bottom to find the meaning of Dark Bakura's name.  
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**NaNoWriMo word count: 7,066. Only 42,934 words left before I reach the minimum goal. =( **

**Encouragements are very welcome. You guys helps me enormously. So a very big thank you to all you reviewers, those that put me on alert and/or favorites. It means a lot to mean. =)  
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**Chapter 2: Explanations.**

The first thing that Harry felt, once he woke up, was warmth and comfort. That wasn't right. His little cot in the cupboard under the stairs wasn't very warm — but not that cold, the Dursleys didn't want to pay the medical bills — and certainly not comfy.

So there were only two possibilities, either he was in a very pleasant dream — something he hoped wasn't true at all — or yesterday's events were real and he was in the bed of one of the best hotels he had ever seen.

He snuggled in deeper into his covers. They were so warm, comfy and oh so, so soft! Not to mention the pillow, or more likely pillows! His head was practically inside the pillow underneath him, while the other ones were around him as some sort protective barrier or nest. He just wanted to lay down there and go back to sleep. Only one thing stopped him from settling in deeper under the sheet and two covers of cinnamon red with swirls of dark gold and black. The call of nature.

Wiggling out, Harry crawled to the edge of the bed, put on some burgundy color slippers before padding towards the bathroom of ocean-like atmosphere. Last night, he had barely glimpsed at how it look liked, the bathtub being the biggest feature in his eyes. So he allowed himself to observe a bit more this time.

The walls were of a blue-green shades that bathed the room in a soothing tone. Panels of shaded lights flooded the room with peacefulness. Fluffy white towels hanged from marble rails. Harry marveled at their texture. The Dursleys' towels had never been like that, as far as he could remember.

And the bathtub! Well, the bathtub next to his room, the second one was normal. But this one, it was huge, enough to hold every one of his relatives and still have some space. (Not an easy feat as anyone who knew said people.) It looked a lot like those spa bathes he once saw in his Aunt's magazines. He hadn't even saw the rest of the rooms — or a suit as he heard Mr. Kaiba and Mr. Pegasus say when they discussed it on the elevator.

Treading out of the bathroom, Harry went exploring the other places. The living room was even bigger than the living room, setting room, entrance hall and kitchen combined together. The thick red carpet went well with the beige walls. Big windows mounted said walls, making sunlight light up the whole room. And if he had thought that the vases downstairs, at the entrance hall of the Langham, were magnificent, then the crystal vases with the red roses, white lilies, yellow sunflowers, purple lavender and some other type of flowers that Harry couldn't recognize right away.

The kitchen was also something that Harry had never seen before. It was big, with state-of-the-art utensils, not to mention all those fresh ingredients in the refrigerator and cupboards. The green-eyed boy hesitated. Should he or should he not wait for Mr. Kaiba before eating?

The decision was made for him when his teacher came in the kitchen wearing a red silk robe with the logo of the Langham on his breast pocket. "Hello Harry, did you sleep well?"

Harry nodded shyly. He knew that he could his teacher — his instincts had never let him down before — but he didn't really know him. Mr. Kaiba went first towards the fridge to take out some eggs, cheese, milk and bacon. Then he went towards the stoves with his ingredients lines up on the side. "Would you like scrambled eggs with bacon for breakfast? Or would you like an omelette?"

Harry looked at him with amazement. "You mean, I get to choose? You don't want me to cook for you?"

"Cook for me? Now where do you get such a ridiculous idea? You are still a little boy, no need for you to cook for me. If you want to help me, I can give you some small tasks, but let me do the dangerous stuff, ok?" Seeing his student nod, Mokuba continued. "So, what would you like? Scrambled eggs or an omelette?"

Harry thought deeply, his nose wrinkling cutely. "Can I have some scrambled eggs with bacon?"

"It's may I have, and yes you may. So, if I understand correctly, you want to help me cook breakfast?"

"Yes, please." It was nice to have someone take care of you. Aunt Petunia had started to teach him how to cook at the beginning of the year. She told him that he had to earn his keep to not be a good-for-nothing person and a waste of space. "What can I do to help?"

"Help me whisk the eggs?" The blacked haired boy smiled happily.

Mokuba cracked a dozen of eggs in a crystal bowl, took out an eggbeater and put in on the table for Harry to beat the eggs. He helped the boy on a chair to reach the bowl with two hand. The both worked on their breakfast. Once the steaming hot plates were on the table, both man and child sat down to eat.

It was one of the best breakfast Harry could ever remember.

"What will happen to me today?"

"First of all, you will be staying with me in this suite. I'll explain everything as to why when Mr. Pegasus comes here, which will be in," he glanced at the clock, "about an hour or so. Until then, what I can tell you is that you won't be going back to the Dursleys."

Harry looked at him, curious and afraid at what was to come. "What do you mean?"

"Harry, I know what is happening at the Dursleys."

Harry was afraid. How? How could Mr. Kaiba know what was happening at the Dursleys?

"Because I had been through what you have before. That is how I know. The thing is, Mr. Pegasus has come by some information that may be able to take you away from the Dursleys and bring you to a different relative. Someone who will take care of you."

Alright, Harry was definitely dreaming. Yesterday's events, last night's wonderful room, a breakfast fit for a king and now this news?! It was a dream come true or it was only a dream. Harry wouldn't survive the latter, if it was the true. "Really?"

"Can you wait for an hour? Mr. Pegasus will be able to explain things better than I do."

"So what will be doing until then?"

"Would you like to watch some TV? Or I can tell you a bit more about your cousin, if all goes well."

"The second one, please?" If he had a relative that wanted him, than it would be logical — according to him, at least — to know the most about him, or her.

"Alright, let's get comfortable before we have this conversation. So dress up, take a shower or bath if you want to, then join me in the living room when you are ready. Ok?"

"Ok." It only took Harry twenty minutes to be ready. Eighteen of those were in the hot shower, which Harry took a sinful pleasure in staying under the hot water, another thing he wasn't allowed at the Dursleys. The other two minutes were to put on the new clothes that were on his bed.

A white t-shirt with a dark silver eye, like those he saw in those pictures from Ancient Egypt, some blue jeans and a pair of grey slippers. They weren't his clothes, but they fit him perfectly. His old clothes and sneakers were no where to be found. He slipped out of his room to sit down on the fluffy maroon couch. He sat there waiting for his teacher to come and tell him about his relative. Was it an uncle or an aunt? Would they like him? Did they have children and would they be like Dudley or not?

Questions linked to that topic, more or less, continued to swirl in his mind as he waited eagerly for his teacher. What he thought was a very long time was actually a couple of seconds. Mr. Kaiba sat down next to him as soon as he heard Harry come out from his room.

"Do you like your new clothes?" It was a simple way to start the conversation. Neutral with a small way on how to follow up on the most serious topic at hand.

"Yes thank you. But where are my old ones?"

Mokuba really wanted to say that he nearly asked the personnel to burn those clothing or give them to a thrift shop, but he needed to keep them in case Harry really wanted them back. "Well, I thought that you would like some different clothes in the morning, so I took the liberty to go and but you some new clothes. Do you like them?"

Harry bobbed his head happily.

Alright, it was up to Mokuba to continue the conversation. "So what do you want to know about Ryo?"

"Ryo? Is he my cousin?" Ryo, the name in itself was funny, but it was also soothing in some sort of way.

"Yes, he is. You are probably wondering how I got by this information?" Seeing the boy stare at him, he took that as an agreement. "Ever since I heard about you, I was a bit skeptical of all those rumors. Then, we you came into my classroom, I was a bit more certain that those rumors were only lies. But I didn't have any proof, unless you actively told me. Even now, I doubt that want to admit that they are mistreating you."

Harry shook his head vigorously.

"Thought so. I tried to find you a relative so that their would be a court battle if that person agreed."

"How?" Harry's hand clasped around his mouth as soon as the words had been uttered. If he had been at the Dursleys, then he would have had a serious reprimand from either his Aunt or his Uncle (if he was home of course).

"You can ask questions if you want, I would prefer if you do when you need to."

Harry nodded but scattered slightly back towards the armrest. The teacher sighed internally, at least now Harry had a chance to live a better life. … On second thought, Mokuba wasn't to sure with the influence of the Priest and the Thief. Especially the Thief!

"Ok, so how did I do it? Harry, do you know who I am?"

"You are my teacher, right?" Harry couldn't understand the question in itself. It was obvious of course.

Mr. Kaiba stood up from his seat and crouched in front of Harry. "Harry, who else do you know that has the same last name as I do?"

"That would be the President of Kaiba corporation. But if you were related to the President, then why would you work in a public school? Wouldn't you be rich enough to not want to work?"

"That would be true, Harry. But the fact is, I wanted to become a teacher, and what better way than to learn than in a public school. _Although, now I'm wondering if my posting was really a coincidence._" He muttered quietly. Then he looked back in Harry's bright green eyes. "I placed your DNA results in the Kaiba Database to compare it to everyone on it. I soon got a match with someone that I knew, your cousin, Ryo Bakura."

"Is he nice?" That was the most important question, in Harry's mind.

"Ryo is extremely nice. Some would say to much since he would always find the good in anyone. He has two husbands."

"Husbands?" Than his cousin was a freak like him! Uncle Vernon would always say mean, angry things every time the news would talk about gay marriages. Nearly the same things when he talked to Harry.

"Yes, husbands. Does that bother you?"

Harry shook his head. "No. No, it doesn't. What are they like?"

"Marik Ishtar is my brother-in-law through my brother's marriage to his sister. Aapep Bakura is also part of what Mr. Pegasus would explain to you later. Both are nice, yet they have some strong personalities. I think you will like them."

Harry looked perplexed. However, if his teacher trusted them, then he would too. Besides, if one of his cousin's husbands was related to Mr. Kaiba, then they were related as well.

A doorbell rang out in the suite. Looking at the clock, Harry noted that there were still fifteen minutes left to the hour.

"Well that's rare to see him so early." Muttered Mokuba. "Usually he is so punctual. Well, it is to our advantage."

He got up, opened the door and came back accompanied by Mr. Pegasus. The white-haired man sat down on the cushion in front of the sofa.

"Coffee?" Mr. Kaiba asked.

"Yes please, black, no sugar and no milk." The man looked so elegant like that. Harry was in admiration.

"One black coffee, coming up. While I do that, mind explaining to Harry about the Court?"

"Of course. So, Harry, what do you know about the Court?"

"Well, I know that a court is where there is a king, a queen and the nobles. Is that what you mean?"

"Close enough. Now answer me another question, have you ever done or felt things that you couldn't explain?"

Harry cocked his head while crunching his nose in order to think. Looking back, he remembered that he could feel if a stranger could be trustworthy or not. Once, he even pointed out a man that didn't 'feel' right to a policeman at the park. The next day, the face of that man was on the news as a serial killer. He didn't dare tell the Dursleys that it was he who told the police. Or he would know when to hide in his cupboard when his Uncle was really angry.

"I can sometimes feel when someone is safe or not. Does that count?"

Mr. Pegasus smiled at him proudly. Harry felt very happy to have impressed the man, even if he didn't understand how. "Very good. That is Shadow Magic. I don't know how you got in possession of it, seeing as you are very young, but that is the case. Which means that you belong to the Shadow Court as one as it's subjects. With me so far?"

"Yes sir. But, magic doesn't exist. My uncle said so."

"Your Uncle also said things about you and those were lies. So why wouldn't he lie about magic as well? Who would you rather believe, me or your uncle who lies a lot?" His voice was neutral, neither angry like his uncle, nor sickly sweet like the other adults who wouldn't believe him.

That is the main reason as to why Harry decided to trust the other man. "What is the Shadow Kingdom then? What is the Court exactly?" He had never asked so many questions in his life. Somehow, he let himself go. Mr. Kaiba had told him a few minutes ago that he could ask questions.

"The Shadow Kingdom exists to maintain in balance Shadow Magic. To have such an ability, a person must suffer a great tragedy or a psychological attack. Like say having a second personality or seeing someone you love die in front of you. Did anything like that happen to you?"

"My Aunt and my Uncle told me that my parents died in a car crash where I was as well."

"That could work, the thing is, a child like you usually bounce back without many problems. Teenagers, old people are the usual ones to gain the ability to control the shadows. Which brings me to the Court. The Court in itself is divided into two parts, a light side and dark side. Our leader, known as the Pharaoh, is one of the most powerful shadow wielders. He is also the ruler of the Dark. His Consort being a very close second is the ruler of the Light Side. Very fortunate for you, your cousin and his husbands are part of the Court. Which makes you more important in the eyes of our rulers. Any questions?"

"Just one, on which side do I belong, the Light or the Dark?" Light equaled good, Dark equaled bad. Right? Right? So was he a good boy or a bad boy like his relatives always told him?

"That would depend on how you will use your magic later on." Mr. Kaiba answered him. "It's not like Light equals good and Dark equals Bad. On the contrary, there are things that only the darkest of shadows can do, while the moonlights and starlights, who are part of the Light, can do things like healing. I'm part of the Dark Side of the Court, yet do you see me as an evil person?"

"No." Harry shook his head to emphasize the answer. Mr. Kaiba was far from being someone evil. "What about my other relatives?"

"Ryo and Marik are part of the Light Side of the Court. Aapep is part of the Dark Side of the Court."

"So, the fact that I can use Shadow Magic makes me part of the Court. That will help me be gone from the Dursleys and live with Ryo. Am I right?" Seeing that the older men nod, the young boy continued. "Light and Dark are only sides of the Magic. When I will grow up, I can decide under whom I'll be reporting too."

"Correct. I must say, your situation is quite rare. Most of the time, a shadow wielder is about thirteen or above, which helps them understand a bit more the situation. You are a very intelligent little boy."

Harry smiled at the compliment. "Thank you." Then, something occurred to him. "What will happen to me now?"

"You will be staying with your teacher in this suite until everything is organized. There is no way that the Pharaoh and his Consort would allow a shadow wielder be with a family like your relatives."

"Knowing Ryo as well as I do, he should be already on a plane from Domino City to see you. Only a couple of hours before he should arrive running."

"You think he'll like me?" That was the most pressing question that Harry really wanted to know.

"Like you? Child, Ryo won't like you." Harry wilted slightly at what Mr. Pegasus told him. "He'll love you as his own son. He has such a big heart, he'll love you immediately." The boy perked up at the statement.

"And his husbands?"

"Marik will love you. As for Aapep, if he doesn't love you, which I very doubt, then Marik and Ryo will make sure that he does."

Harry felt that he could trust these two men, but he'll have to meet his cousin and his husbands to truly know their intentions towards him. The shadows hadn't let him down so far.

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**Aapep means "Moon Snake" in Ancient Egyptian.**

**Stay tune for the next chapter: The Ward goes to School.  
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	4. Chapter 3: The Ward goes to School

**An: A new chapter has arrived. Thank you all for your support with your reviews, your favorites and alerts on my story. I am now at 1/5 of the required writing at the NaNoWriMo challenge.  
**

**This chapter is a little bit more filled with details. Please tell me how you like it.  
**

**Also, any and all mistakes in this and the previous chapters will be corrected after this month is done. If you are writing on the fly like I am and with a tight deadline, you tend to have that.  
**

******NaNoWriMo word count: 11,022. Only 38,978 words left before I reach the minimum goal.**

******Read and review folks. All critics are good except for the flames.  
**

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**Chapter 3: The Ward goes to School**

Nearly five years has passed since Harry's day and night at the Langham Hotel where his fate changed. Five years where the Sun-God Ra rose every morning and fell every night, followed by the Moon-God Khonsu during every night.

On this particular day, the sunlight crept into a two-floored apartment on Macklin Street near Covent Garden. Pictures hanged elegantly on walls. Each photos usually had a boy with dark hair and brilliant green eyes. Next to him was either a gentle-looking man with shoulder-length white hair with light brown hair or an Egyptian looking man with short gray hair and long back bangs, not to mention mysterious light purple eyes. Both of them were smiling while the boy was riding his first bicycle, on a carousel at the fair, playing a computer game or even playing Duel Monster Card games. Another man stood in the background as well, usually with a scowl on his face, but you could see the hidden gentleness in his eyes when he was watching the boy, if you looked very closely. That man looked very much like the gentle one, except that his hair was more spiky and he had an air of fierceness around him.

Although those three men were mostly in those pictures, other people appeared in some of the photos. Mr. Kaiba, Harry's former teacher or mostly known as Uncle Mokuba as he insisted to be called, was one of the second most prominent person in those photos. His brother and sister-in-law, Seto and Isis Kaiba, appeared as well with another little boy with them. A boy with his father's dark brown hair and blue-grey eyes, but had his mother's tanned skin and face.

Now this little boy was with the other boy in the kitchen making breakfast together. They were giggling and making shushing noises to each other when they started to be to loud. The black-haired boy was the one directing the brown-haired one. From the stove came the smell of pancakes, eggs and hash browns mixed in an elegant ballet of aromas.

"Would you please set the table Satoshi? I'll go wake up my dads." Green eyes twinkled in mischief at what he was about to do.

"Ok, Harry. I'll be ready for when you come down." Satoshi Shabaka Kaiba was an intelligent eight years old. He knew what his cousin was up to.

They both grinned at one another. Then Harry went up the stairs to his dads' room. Cracking the door open, he held back another giggle. From his pocket, he took out two Duel Monster cards.

Both of them were nearly identical. They had three stars on top but that was where the similarities ended. Then they were like negatives. The first card had the image of a young boy with white hair, a white cape with dark stars and a staff with a white stone in the middle. He had 600 attack points with 1600 defense points. The other one had the image of a young boy with dark hair, a dark cape with white stars and a staff with a black stone in the middle. His attack and defense points were reversed.

Channeling his magic into those cards, Harry waited for them to light up, before the spirits looking like the picture on the cards. Both of them were of the same hight as Harry. "Can you levitate my daddy and papa off the bed without waking them up, please?"

The twins nodded. Taking their mission very seriously. They floated silently to the right side of the bed where the gentle-looking men were the closest. Lifting their hands, brows furrowed deeply, they channeled their magic to levitate those men from the bed to a large sofa not far from said bed. Exchanging roguish grins, the twins floated back to Harry. They stood behind the boy, honor guards of some sort.

Harry took out another card, it was a two star monster, with 200 attack points and 1800 defense points. The image was a sort of cat-like anamorphic being made of water. Channeling his magic inside the card, he pointed it at the last person on the bed. A blast of water came from the card targeted the bed.

The scream of rage made Harry dissolve into giggles before he scampered back downstairs to the kitchen. Joining his cousin, Satoshi, they went to hide in the giant pantry, trying to hold back each other's laughter. Thunderous steps came down those same stairs. "**HARRY JAMES BAKURA! GET OUT FROM YOUR HIDING PLACE WITH SATOSHI!**" The man cried out loud, not to far from the cousins' hiding place.

"Really Aapep, so early in the morning?" Another voice rang down the stairs. The gentle white-haired man came down to join the cold-looking one. "And look, they made breakfast for us. Thank you Harry, Satoshi. You came come from the pantry now." Seeing his husband about to retort, he sent him a glare. Aapep cowered slightly. A muffled giggle from Marik joined those from the children.

The two boys exited the storeroom. "HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!" They shouted happily, before running to hug and every one of the men in the room. Aapep was reserved for last in a 'two pronged attack from the menaces'. If he hugged them a bit tighter then the two others, well, it was only to 'choke' them a little.

They all sat down to eat the breakfast the children made. Marik and Ryo complemented them on their cooking skills. The boys were happy that they did it right. Near the end, Harry and Satoshi left the table quickly to get the presents. The two cousins had saved up for this fifteenth anniversary of marriage — or most commonly known as the wedding of crystal —, as well as contacting their relatives for any _special presents_ that were needed.

For Ryo, they had contacted his father for a special archeological item: the map for the Library of Alexandria. It took a lot of time and money (of which they had both when they were together), but they finally got the map which was a set of riddles and clues to this mythical place. For the Librarian, it was a very important present. The main clue being in a glass window that was perfectly preserved by Fate or Luck.

Marik's present was bit more down to earth. After searching with Harry's aunt, who was also Satoshi's mother, through every shop possible in many cities — it was lucky that Kaiba Corp had private jets —, they finally found the motorcycle that Marik wanted when first went out to the real world. They even found a way to upgrade it to be top-of-the-line.

As for Aapep, Harry was pretty please with his purchase. The Des of Isis, a knife that was used to kill her enemies, like Apophis, the Great Serpent. Seeing the light in his father's eyes at the present, Harry felt very pleased. Until Aapep extended his hand to his adoptive son. "Mind giving me back my ring? I felt you take it at the very last moment. Good work." Scowling slightly, Harry gave his father his ring back. Then he sent pleading eyes at Aapep. "Alright, alright, we'll go to the zoo today, as promised."

Satoshi and Harry cheered at the news, while Aapep was treated to the amused sights of his husbands. The eyes were clearly saying "_whipped_". In less than an hour, the kitchen was cleaned spotless, they were all clothed and in the car to go to the zoo. Marik and Ryo were talking about motorcycles, Marik was still very excited with his present.

That was when, Harry remembered his dream about last night. So he blurted it out. His parents laughed at the thought.

"I wish mine could, that would be awesome." Marik told him. They continued their car trip in a very good mood. Even the trip to the zoo was just as fun, up until they went into the reptile house.

Their, they encountered some very unpleasant individuals: the Dursleys with Dudley's friend, Piers Polkiss. Harry started to hide slightly behind his papa before taking a deep breath and stood forward. His aunt wrinkled her nose at them but didn't dare say anything. His uncle just ignored them to the best of his abilities. Dudley and Piers were to busy knocking on the glass of one of the reptiles.

Satoshi and Harry walked towards another window of the exhibition where a boa constrictor from Brazil rested calmly. Satoshi was practically bouncing of joy. "Can you talk to him, Harry? Please, please, please, please?" He whispered excitedly.

Harry nodded in agreement. Putting his fingers on the glass for the vibration, he spoke. "_Hello. How are you doing?_".

The snake moved his body towards them. Winking once to both boys, he bobbed his head.

"He is doing well. What do you want to ask him, Satoshi?" Harry murmured.

"Ask him about Brazil, please." Harry did that. The snake jerked his his tail to the sign a bit more intensively. The cousins looked at the sign: Born and bred at the zoo.

Satoshi looked down. "Then ask him if he wants to go back."

"_Would you like to go to Brazil? Or are you happy here? Bob for going to Brazil, shake for being happy._" The snake bobbed his head eagerly. "He wants to go back home, even if he never been there."

Before Satoshi could reply, they were pushed by Dudley and Piers. "Move it, you freaks." Let it not be said that Dudley was intelligent. Especially to recognize his cousin and someone important.

Harry hit the floor first but was quick enough to cushion Satoshi's fall. Ryo was the first to crouch down next to them, Marik not far behind, to see if they were alright. But a scream was made before Aapep could do anything. The two blondes had fallen into the cage right in the middle of a pond.

Screams from other visitors rang out as a boa constrictor snaked itself on the floor. He only paused to bow down before Harry. "_Thanks amigo. Brazil here I come._" He quickly twisted away.

Aapep was silently laughing as he heard the caretaker wonder what happened to the glass. Vernon and Petunia Dursley were to busy shouting for something to be done. Their precious Dinky Duddydums had to be saved from that cage!

All in all, it was a memorable experience for the whole family.

—PotS—

Summer soon rolled in. Summer meant vacation and birthday. Two weeks before the B-day, the household received a call from Marik's sister. Precognition was a nice gift, but a very imprecise science. This time, Isis only had a feeling that something was going to change today. But she didn't know what and exactly who in the family. Nor did she know how this change would be put in place.

The answer came through a letter for Harry. Well, not exactly one letter but two actually. The first weird thing was the letter in itself. Harry had never actually received a letter, e-mails and texts were mostly used. The rare letters that were sent to him were those of fans when he toured tournaments. That was taken care of by his uncle's corporation.

So when he did received those two letters, Harry was surprised. Another intriguing fact was there were no stamps and return address on those letters. The writing was in green ink, while on the back of those envelopes was a crest with an eagle, a lion, a badger and a snake around the letter "H". The last intriguing fact were to who they were addressed to. The first one was to _Harry James Bakura-Ishtar_. The second one was to_ Harry James Potter_, his old name before he changed it when he turned eight.

The contents of the letters were the same and weird as well. Sitting down in the living room, Harry and his dads were a bit surprised. Hogwarts? What kind of name was that? The name of the school itself was a bit weird. School of Witchcraft and Wizardry? There was no such school that they know of, even in the Shadow Kingdom. There were tutors to teach how to control shadow magic.

That was when the whole family decided to take a trip to see the Pharaoh. Something was up and their son was concerned. Ryo did had the forethought to call Yugi to tell them they were coming. Not wanting to take the time to buy some plane tickets, as well as waiting throughout the whole trip, Aapep and Marik weaved a shadow portal straight to the Muto's game shop. Waiting for them was Atem, Yugi, Isis and Seto.

Giving the letters, Harry was waiting patiently in the back-room with some of the test games. He knew better then to listen to a conversation between adults. If something was important, than he knew that his dads would tell him. He trusted them to be upfront, like they promised him the first time they met.

Atem did remember something about magic users that were different than the shadow users during his rule. But nothing much. Seto had already launched a research with his company as soon as he got a name. After twenty minutes had passed, he received a beep from his phone. On them were a couple of names, one of them being very familiar to the Bakura-Ishtar family. A Mrs. Arabella Doreen Figg, another resident of Macklin Street near Covent Garden. Something was fishy. The Thief and the Priest were **not** happy at all. Nobody fishy was suppose to come near their son. They had already suffered to much when they were young, they did not want that for the boy.

It was time to pay a little visit to their catty-little neighbor, Mrs. Figgs. It took five minutes for the men to take Harry back home before ringing up that old little lady to invite her for an early ten o'clock tea. She readily agreed for some strange reason.

She came on time, a big smile on her face. It was rare to be invited at the Bakura-Ishtar household, even rarer to be acknowledged by the three men. They were a close family and very protective of their son.

Arabella Figg had met them through the trial against the Dursleys as one of the witnesses for Harry. She was the one to alert the nurse of the school that something was up with little Harry Potter. The nurse had been the one to organize the file to bring it to the authority. But it hadn't been enough until Mr. Mokuba had intervened with Mr. Pegasus and the Bakura-Ishtar men. It was amazing how money could make a trial run more smoothly and faster. What would have taken a couple of months, with Harry still being with the Dursley, took only two weeks with Harry staying in one of the most luxurious hotels in London with his potential new relatives.

Mrs. Figg knew that she should have warned Dumbledore about the little change of family, but she had enough money to move neighborhoods and the old man hadn't contacted her about anything suspicious. Why bother the esteemed man if there were no problems at all?

This month was the beginning of the letters being sent. She had a hunch that this morning tea was more of an interrogation. She was no fool, contrary to what many would think. Albus Dumbledore wanted someone to watch over the boy and note if anyone suspicious was in the area, he would only hire the best out of his own money. Arabella Doreen Figg was such a person. She may be a squib, but she and her husband were renown spies in the war with their pet cats as informers.

So it came to no surprise when the first salvo was launched as soon as she was poured some tea. And by Aapep Bakura-Ishtar to boot. She would have bet on either him or Marik. Certainly not sweet Mr. Ryo Bakura. She couldn't even imagine him hurt a fly. What she didn't imagine was how they knew that she had information on Hogwarts.

The conversation that followed took the better part of two hours. Seeing that she was very forthcoming, the 'interrogation' relaxed a tiny bit. They asked every detail that was possible about the wizarding world. She answered what she could, explaining why she couldn't answer better some of the questions. Needless to say that they weren't impressed by the caste-system that was in place. When she came to the part of Harry's fame, they were even less impressed then ever. The good news was that they knew their green-eyed treasure wouldn't have a big head. Harry was already slightest famous for being adopted in their family and for winning many international junior tournaments.

When it was lunch time, Mrs. Figg was invited to eat with the family. Then she was treated to something even she couldn't imagine: shadow traveling.

From there, she sat down in the presence of the Pharaoh and his Consort from the Shadow Kingdom. Never in whole her whole life she would have imagined to learn of another secret society. She readily agreed to a vow of silence until the time was right. It was fun to be back in the game of cloaks, secrets, shadows and mysticism.

Her main objective had been fulfilled: watch over Harry Potter to the best of her abilities and make sure that he comes back to the Wizarding World when it was time.

It would have been superfluous to say that she was honored to be the tour guide for Harry Potter and his family.

—PotS—

The trip to Diagon Alley was … _magical_, if Harry wanted to find a better word. Wherever he looked, it kept on getting better. Mrs. Figg brought them first to the bank where Ryo and Marik had to hide a smile at Aapep's glee of a better challenge for his talents. They made a mental note to have a stern talking to about robbing another bank. He already did that for fun.

Mrs. Figg led them straight to the Goblins where Harry had to do a little verification test before he was given his vault's key. Marik, always the business man, stayed behind to discuss finances with the goblin in charge of the Potter's vaults: Gornuk. Ryo and Aapep went down in the cart with a different goblin who went by the name of Griphook.

As Griphook unlocked the door, green smoke came billowing out, clearing the room. Harry gasped at the sight in front of him: mounds of gold coins, columns of silver and heaps of little bronze Knuts. Ryo just knew that his husband was salivating at the prospect of what contained the other vaults not related to their own.

To have a bit of insight of the layouts, Aapep asked Griphook for a little tour of the bank. He insisted to Griphook that he wanted to see how this bank worked since he was interested in opening a vault as well. No need to tell him who owned which vault or how the security worked. Just a quick visit, nothing more, nothing else. The thief had a silver tongue that seem to charm the goblin. It did help that the Potters were old clients, Aapep was correct to them and the tantalizing aspect of some new gold entering the bank. (Aapep did had some hideouts filled with his stolen treasures from the past and from the present.)

The trip was very interesting, specifically since they passed by a certain vault where a giant of a man was taking what seemed to be something small, oval and coarsely wrapped-up in brown paper. Harry only had a glimpse of the thing before the cart whisked away quickly.

Once they were brought back to the surface, they met a smiling Marik. He was now in charge of the Potter fortune which had been left alone for quite some time now. They continued on their shopping trips with Mrs. Figg. The old woman had taken the chance to grab some kneazle-food. The brand was better than owl order.

The bookstore seemed to be the best part for Harry and Ryo. The effect was worse by the fact that the baskets had some sort of Weightless Charm on them which multiplied the number of books to be carried. The two other husbands gulped at the sheer thought of carrying those bags. They felt relieved when they heard that the items would be shrinked at the register.

So many books to read. New information to be discovered on this mysterious world. So much money opportunities to be under the cover of lawsuits after all the books that were written about Harry Potter. There had been a whole wall of such books with two prominent authors that appeared in the forefront: a certain Rita Skeeter and a Eldred Worple. It made the trip not to boring for the non-readers in the family.

Their last pitt-fall was at Eeylops Owl Emporium. Mrs. Figg had insistently told them to buy an owl to communicate. Following that advice, Harry found himself the owner of a beautiful snow owl. He was so pleased that he practically glowing. He hadn't been allowed a pet before, but now he had the perfect excuse. His problem now was to find a perfect name for the she-owl. Maybe his new history book would give him a clue to find The Name.

The rest of the summer passed by with only one memorable occasion to be noted: Harry's birthday. As usual, his family had been gathered at the apartment to celebrate in a more private way. His Aunt Isis had presented him with a new deck, just like every year.

For some reason, Harry's magic couldn't seem to stick to one single deck. Every year, he would change the type or theme as it was usually called. Only seven cards had sticked during those five years, two of them were his key monsters: Dark Gemini Twin and Light Gemini Twin. They had been his partners in crime in many of his pranks against his dads.

His aunt usually helped him with her precognitive ability. Usually, they would help during the year. However, this time, it took him the whole month before he could gain the trust of his monsters. At least it was just in time for school.

Mrs. Figg joined them once again to guide them to a weirdly placed platform. Well weird for a normal person. But for the Shadow Users, platform nine and three-quarters was placed at the exact same place any entrance to the Shadow Kingdom would have been. It would seem that things were kind-of similar between the two hidden worlds.

As he stepped on the train, Harry's life had a new door being opened. As the first of the Shadow Users to have a different kind of magic than the shadows, he was placed with an important job from his lieges concerning this new world.

To learn as much as he could on this hidden society in order to be able to integrate it. Once his schooling was finished, if this society was interesting, the Shadow Kingdom would need an ambassador for a new alliance. But until then, Harry's main mission was to store any and all information of the Wizarding World.

He would be the link between those two worlds. If everything turned out right, Harry's status would change from the Ward to the Ambassador. A much better ranking in the Court, under the Dark side of the Court.

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**An: A special encouragement to a fellow Nanowriter: Dragon Silhouette. Hope she'll do well with her novel.**

**A part from that, what did you guys think? Also, all characters, except for my little OC Satoshi Kaiba, do belong to either the YGO 'verse or the HP 'verse. Check it up if you don't believe me.  
**

**Stay tune for the next chapter. I haven't found a name yet.  
**


	5. Chapter 4: School, shadows and secrets

**AN: Alright people, the one and only new chapter 4 is up. Sorry for the slight delay but I got a writer's block that lasted 24 hours. On the other hand, I've noticed that my chapters were getting longer and longer.  
**

**Also, any and all mistakes in this and the previous chapters will be corrected after this month is done. If you are writing on the fly like I am and with a tight deadline, you tend to have that.  
**

******NaNoWriMo word count: 15,474. Yikes! I'm way behind my usual quota with **34,526 words left to go.

**********Read and review folks. All critics are good except for the flames.**  


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**Chapter 4: School, shadows and secrets.**

When Harry had been adopted, one of the first actions that his cousin Ryo had done was change schools for his adoptive nephew. It was a new experience for the boy, meeting new people that wouldn't know the Dursleys 'facts about him'. Still, it was a bit of a frightening experiment, yet interesting at the same time.

Those five years in his new class had helped him deal with his new notoriety in the Dueling world. First as the adoptive nephew joining the _Bakura-Ishtar_ family, thus the Kaiba family. This, in turn, made him prominent connected to the most famous duelists in the world. In less than two weeks, he had become famous for something he hadn't done.

Then, he got interested in Duel Monsters, since they were an important part of Shadow Magic. Being tutored by the best, Harry quickly got the hang of the game. By the age of six, he entered his first junior tournament. He was placed fifth, which was not to bad for a beginner. Pretty soon, he entered more and more tournaments, gaining more experience, acquiring even more fame.

So when he was on the train, Harry had the pleasant experience of not being recognized at the drop of a hat. The only visible sign he had to hide was his scar on his forehead. That was easy enough with his bangs being set in such a way that his hair would look messy, naturally hiding that small detail.

The ride passed by quickly with Harry still training on how to use his deck in an empty compartment. He had only been bothered three times. The first by a bushy-haired girl who was looking for a toad, she quickly left him alone. She seemed an interested introverted type of person. He would have to see how she acted later on at school.

The second by the most obnoxious blonde boy who looked very much like one of his uncle's business partners, a certain Lucius Malfoy. The boy didn't even introduce himself, he saw him, treated him with the name "Mudblood" with one of those disdainful sneers, then left.

The third one was the visit of one of his classmates: Dean Thomas. Dean was not someone that he knew very well, but they occasionally dueled against one another during their breaks. They would even meet from time to time at a football match for the West Ham team. Harry _could_ say that they could be friends, but they were not close enough to be that. At least it was a nice surprise to see him going to the same school as he was.

The rest of the journey passed by as they dueled against one another. It was familiar and nice. As they arrived at the platform, they got off together and followed the same gigantic man Harry had seen at the bank onto the boats. They were joined by two boys who introduced themselves as Seamus Finnigan and Neville Longbottom. The latter was the owner of a runaway toad that still hadn't been found at the moment.

Hogwarts was breathtaking over the water. The lights spilling from the numerous windows seemed to surround the castle in holy light that doubled itself with the lake. The starry night illuminating the scene in a mystifying aura. Harry was the only one to feel the magic coming from the school. His shadows reached out to the core, making it electrifying for Harry.

In that small waiting chamber, Harry felt before he saw the ghosts appeared. He didn't jump in surprise like the other kids, they were so much like the monster spirits that he saw every day.

The ghosts seemed to notice as well that something was up. It was not surprising since shadow magic primary usage was with the dead. It would be natural that the dead could feel the shadows as well.

The Sorting Ceremony was bit tedious in Harry's opinion. Really, a Sorting Hat that went on top countless of heads. It didn't seem washed, Harry didn't even want to know what sort of germ that were on it. He restrained a shudder when It covered his eyes.

Arguing with the voice seemed like a good idea. Why would he lower his mental shields to some magical object? Take the Millennium Items for example. They were magical and had some serious bad side-effects. (Not all bad, some things were good, such as his father or the Pharaoh.)

The Object told him that he would be great in either Slytherin or Gryffindor. It stated that he was a bit to jaded for Hufflepuff with the darkness inside of him, Ravenclaw would have been to studious for his life. That same darkness in his core made him legible for Slytherin, yet his bravery and character were the perfect mould for Gryffindor.

The negative feedback about Slytherin, as well as seeing that detestable little blonde at the green-and-silver clothed table, resolved for him his decision. The Hat shouted his decision, answered by a roar of welcome, overcoming the wondering whispering of his name. He would have to talk to his Head of House as to why he had a letter addressed to Bakura-Ishtar then it wasn't on the list. It was a little bit weird. Not to mention downright un-organized.

He sat down next to Neville. At least it was someone he knew. It front of him was the bushy-haired girl, deep into a discussion with a red-haired older boy about _school work_. Harry deduced that she must be the lonely teacher's pet whose only way to feel alive is to learn and pass that knowledge on to others in a rather crude way. He would have to keep on eye on her, she was the perfect target for bullying.

Dean soon joined him as he was Sorted too. In this new world, Duelists should stick together, even if they were still separated by something else in Harry's case. But this was to important for them to be separated.

For two eleven years old, this was an even more frightening situation. They were thrust into an alien world with practically no contact and no information as to who to trust. Their parents couldn't really help to protect them since they themselves were not part of this world. They were all alone. Well, Dean was all alone, Harry was still connected to the shadows, thus he had the Court to rely on if he was in any danger. That reassured him, inside this world full of glittering illusions. Dean had no one, once the adrenaline of wonderment finished, Harry was sure that Dean would feel homesickness.

As part of his role in the Court, Harry was honored-bound to watch over him as much as he could. He would write to the Pharaoh about how many duelists were in this school. If magic was another branch of the shadows, then were they part of the Court as well? To whom would they offer their alliance? The Court or the Wizarding World?

Harry barely heard the Headmaster's speech, a part from the most important part like the forbidden areas. Dinner passed into a blur as he thought on his next mouvements, just like his father taught him on how to plan. Papa taught him how to use his head while daddy wast the one who trained him in using every one of his resources in his possession. Something was in that Forbidden Corridor. The Headmaster had expressed it in such a way that it was bait for sure. Why say that something was forbidden to a school full of curious children? But to who and why? Another mystery added to the list.

As he went towards his dormitory, the green-eyed boy encountered Peeves the Poltergeist. This picked Harry's interest. This spirit was different than the other ghosts. He had a more physical aspect, could hurt people with pranks, yet he was subservient to a different ghost. What made him do that? Shouldn't he be the one to control the ghosts in the castle? Or if he was more dangerous, why hadn't he been exorcised yet? Certainly other headmasters than the current one would have wanted to and didn't. This school and world had become more intriguing.

It would seem that he would have an adventure like his dads after all.

— PotS—

"Ah, Yes, Harry Potter. Our new … celebrity."

Ah! There was the teacher that he was looking for in this school. There was always one of those, wherever he was, there would always be one teacher who would resent his fame. That same teacher would always accuse him of all the miseries of the world if they could.

There was only one way to deflect that type of attention. Suck it up, be polite and learn your lessons. Be the perfect teacher so that he couldn't be picked on. But first, he would have to talk to the teacher to see why he was being targeted. But before that, he needed to concentrate on this lesson.

As predicted, barely fifteen seconds in the lesson, Professor Snape launched the offensive with questions. The first two were easy to answer, his papa had drilled him with every information in his school books. However, the third one "What is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?" had not been in his school books. At least he couldn't remember it being there.

Well, at least the professor didn't say anything else to him about his fame. So there may be hope for this teacher. He paired up with Dean with Neville right beside them. That was why Harry was at the right moment and at the right time to stop Neville from adding the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire. A glimpse in the corner of his eye informed him that Professor Snape had seen the incident but hadn't say anything.

At the end of the lesson, Harry approached his teacher's desk. "Sir, I realize that you may think that I am imbued with my fame, but I hadn't realize that I was famous in this world. I didn't even I was a wizard until I got my letter." He took a deep breath before continuing his little speech. "If you see me acting like some sort of overblown egocentric student, then please, bring me down a couple of notches. Until then, I only want to be like any other students with no special treatment. That means that I shouldn't be always used as some quarry. Excuse my language sir."

Dark blank eyes, like cold tunnels, stared in bright emerald-green ones. "I see Mr. Potter that I may have some presumptions about your situations."

"From what I gather, it would seem that I had many books written on my subject. My daddies are at the moment suing some of the authors. Up until I was five, I was at the Dursleys. Then, I got adopted by my dads."

"I see. So many of the informations that were told about you were lies?"

"Seeing that I had never gave an interview to any wizards," Harry made quotations with his fingers, "that I know of. On top of that, many of those so called facts seemed to be fantasied. I mean really? At six, I defeated a full grown Norwegian Ridgeback? I read about them in one of my books, they are vicious, poisonous and downright dangerous, especially the mothers during Nesting Seasons. How could I, a little six years old boy defeat one of them when even full grown adults dare not tread near them? If it isn't ludicrous then it would have been a perfect piece of fiction."

Professor Snape looked at him pensively. "I see Mr. Potter. It seems that I have some thinking to do. In the mean time, go to dinner and enjoy your week-end."

"Thank you sir." Harry started to leave the classroom, happy about how the situation went. Suddenly, something passed his mind. "And sir, the third question wasn't very nice. That came from a second year Potion book. My papa read it to my as a bedtime story. Potion recipes helped me sleep." Then he left with that passing shot, missing the astonished look from his teacher.

He hoped that everything would turn alright. It would be a shame that Potions wouldn't work out with the wrong teacher. It seemed like a wonderful job, creating something without the use of magic. It was something so beautiful, so accessible to everyone that Harry wanted to learn more about it. Potion making is some sort of magic that seemed like card making.

Every card that was created and released on the market had some sort of spiritual touch. How else would new cards could come to be? The theory was that the monster spirits would come to the mind a of a shadow-user via a dream, even if he or she didn't have much of said magic. But amidst the thousands of hundreds of different type of monsters, only a very small percentage would appear. No one knew how or why they would come to a certain person. No one could explain why two opposite type of monster, magic or trap cards would come to the mind of the creator. What was the commonality? How could these cards appear in public?

To encourage the creation of new cards, the two main companies — Kaiba Corporations and Industrial Illusions — of the Duel Monster market had created competition after competition of card creating decks. Promising that the deck would be created for the winner, as well as another important prize. The winners would vary in age starting from six as being the youngest up to someone who was a hundred and three. So far, no full-proof theory could be formulated. It was a bit like the Mathematical Millennium prize. If anybody could explain it, then the Pharaoh promised to fulfill one realistic wish. Anything at all.

Potion making was obscure in the same way. How was a new potion being created? What made this ingredient react with another yet it didn't work in a different potion? Why would two potions, with the very same ingredients, made in different ways, had two opposite effects? If he could somehow find out the magical link between the two creative arts, then maybe he could ask the Pharaoh for the creation of the cards with a link to his parents.

Peeves the Poltergeist was an excellent beginning. How can a physical spirit still be there, yet not exercise his power? Then their was potion making. It could take years, but Harry was sure that he could find the theory behind card making.

He just had to.

That night, he received a small article from his father. Cut out from the Daily Prophet, the title was "GRINGOTTS BREAK-IN LATEST" explaining of a break-in Gringotts on the day of his birthday. In red pen, circling "Gringotts goblins today insisted that nothing had been taken. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied the same day.", his father had underlined multiple times the word "emptied the same day" with some exclamations points to emphasize the stupidity of the robber's actions. Harry let out a small giggle that he waved away at Dean's inquisitiveness. He told him that it was a family joke.

With the article was a small letter written in code, just like his father had played with him (although he had said that it was training. "_Not only has someone did what I wanted to do, but that idiot went for an empty vault! You know what you have to do kiddo._"

Harry quickly scribbled back. "_Yep, go tell Uncle Seto about your extra-curriculum activities. What else would I do? Anyway, why send me this article?_" He sent his snow-owl back to his father. He had named her Hedwig, after a German Witch whose works canonized her in the Mundane World.

He continued to eat his dinner when something crossed his mind, wasn't the Groundskeeper at the Gringotts the day he went? Why would the man go there? On top of that, it was the first time that the Headmaster had forbidden a place in the school. He checked the rumor vine with the portraits, older students and some of the ghosts. Was there a relationship between the two and the empty vault? Another mystery he had to checked later.

Come to think of it, his father hadn't even replied to his letter. Maybe he was still pouting.

—PotS—

Harry had met many pampered, spoiled-to-the-bone, whiny children. Dudley being the prime example and closest to him, speaking by blood relation. But never had he met someone as horrible, prima donna than Pansy Parkinson.

For some time, he thought that Draco Malfoy could fit the bill. A letter to his Uncle Seto about one of his associates' son behavior and things resolved themselves. His behavior became more subdued towards him, but not in general.

As soon as one bully was down, another cropped up. In this case, Pansy Parkinson. She wanted to become the Queen Bee of Slytherin. Well first, she wanted the rank of Princess before reaching the one of Queen. To be able to reach that rank, she had to become more popular than the Slytherin Prince, Draco Malfoy. One way to reach that was by taking on famous Harry Potter. At least, in her feeble little mind, that plan could work.

So, she went out of her way to try to antagonize him. Little things like snide remarks, finger pointing or even by trying to get him into trouble. It wasn't working very much so far.

Harry had already been living the world of fame. His whole family was famous since they were young. Ever since he was six, he had to learn as to how to bath in those paparazzi lights, ignore them, try to live a more private life — which had worked somewhat — and how to utilize at the maximum of it's capacity his fame. Hence, her evil little plans of House Domination, then School Domination didn't quite pan out the way she wanted.

Harry didn't think that he would see her very much during the school year. Gryffindor only had class with Slytherin on Fridays with Potions. Besides, Professor Snape did not accept any tomfoolery in his classes and Draco Malfoy was trying to stay in Harry's good graces due to his fame and name (a very powerful tool in society, his family name being part of the Most Ancient Houses in Wizarding Society) as well as his father's businesses. Which meant in turn that his father would strongly disapprove of him if Seto Kaiba decided to break business if his nephew wasn't treated right at Hogwarts. No way in the nine circles of Hell would he disobey his father. If that meant playing nice with Harry, then that what was he would do.

All in all, it would seem that Pansy Parkinson wouldn't much of a threat in bothering his life. She would be separated from him with the blessings of the Slytherin Head of House and the Slytherin Prince.

Then, the notice on the billboard in the Common Room appeared. Flying lessons on Thursdays. Fantastic! Just what he wanted, to make a complete fool of himself in front of Pansy Parkinson, her cohorts, and his fellow students, thus giving them more fuel for fire that could stick on him for a couple of weeks. Something he was not looking forward too.

On the morning of the Thursday of the very first flying lesson, Harry felt that something wouldn't be right. It started with Neville, someone he had started to get close with, had received from his grandmother a very special present: a remembrall. It was like a memorizing exercise. The smoke in that clear glass ball would turn red when he forgot something. This in turn forced Neville to recall what he could forget. It was a nice present since it showed that Neville's grandmother cared in her own special way.

Then, Pansy showed up with her posse composed of Daphne Greengrass and Millicent Bulstrode. Snatching the remembrall, she was about to open her mouth to say something stupid when Professor McGonagall appeared all of a sudden. Harry swore sometimes that she must have had cat instincts, something similar or maybe she had been a ninja in her previous life. OR, the main fact was that she could spot troublemakers a mile away.

"Is there a problem?" She practically demanded, ready to intervene.

"Nothing at all, Professor." Harry had to restrain himself from throwing up at the much to sweet saccharine tone that Pansy Parkinson was doing when answering his Head of House. Pansy gave back Neville's present to it's owner before strutting back to the Slytherin table.

"Good, I hope that it will be kept that way." She left just as silently and quickly back to the Head Table.

That was only in the morning!

By three-thirty in the afternoon, Harry, Dean and Neville marched to the area where their flying lessons were to be held. The Slytherins were already there. Draco and Harry nodded to each other politely. Today, the two Houses would be polite to each other.

So why did this afternoon wrong? It all started with something harmless as Neville falling down from his broom. Since he was accidental prone, Harry didn't think much about it except feeling for his friend's pain.

As Madam Hooch accompanied him to the infirmary, she insisted on the fact that everyone should stay on the ground until she came back. The trip in total should take only about ten minutes, maybe twenty maximum, at least according to Harry's calculations.

During those ten tiny small minuscule minutes, Pansy Parkinson just had to act during that time with that braying laughter of her. "Did you see his face? What a baby. Baby boy Neville, can't even fly a broomstick."

"Shut up Parkinson. You are embarrassing your House." Draco Malfoy was the one to intervene. "Please continue if you think that you are immune to the consequences. Just know that House of Slytherin won't lift a finger to protect you from any punishment that the House of Gryffindor will dish out on you."

Pansy wasn't very beautiful in the first place, but when her pug-shaped face turned puce, things couldn't get any uglier. "WHAT?!" Seeing that her shriek made everyone wince and that it wasn't very lady-like, she continued in a more normal tone. "You can't do that!"

"I can and I will. I'll let the current Queen know of your behavior. So please, do continue to embarrass yourself and remove yourself from competition." Draco was drawling so softly that Harry only heard because he was near by.

Pansy started to stomp towards the blonde before she saw something shining on the ground. "Well what do we have here? Baby Neville's remembrall." She bent down to scoop up Neville's present.

Harry was about to loose his cool in front of that self-centered princess. "Give it here Parkinson." He stepped forward, calling forth the shadows to augment his aura to scare only her. Nobody else noticed anything else.

"Or what? You can't do anything, Potty-Potter." Draco's eyebrows twitched slightly in anger. But he kept a neutral face.

"Really Parkinson. You are already in deep trouble with your House. Would you add a ruined reputation to the list? A bad way to start, Parkinson."

Pansy was thinking really hard about something. Finally, she must have decided that this little tryst wasn't worth the problems later on. "Fine, you want it so badly, then go fetch Potter." She threw the ball with all her might towards the lake.

Somehow, her aim and throw were very good. It was a long curveball that was going to go in the lake. Harry didn't even think before he acted, mounting his broom, he kicked off quickly to catch his friend's ball. His shadows densified the air to slow down the ball's fall.

Letting his instincts guide him, he leaned forward to catch in extremist the remembrall. The crows cheered him as he started to fly back to the group. Yet trouble hadn't finished with him at all.

"HARRY POTTER!" Was shouted out from across the courtyard. Ten minutes or twenty hadn't passed by, had they? His heart sank as he saw Professor McGonagall, his Head of House, walk briskly towards them. At least the professor was dignified enough to not run.

"Never … in all my years …" She couldn't finish her sentences. However, Harry couldn't feel anger coming from his teacher. Rather, … excitement? What in the name of the gods was happening?

Professor McGonagall ignored all the arguments from both Gryffindor and Slytherin students about the situation. Turning around, she ordered. "Potter, follow me."

Ok, what type of punishment would Harry receive when the teacher hadn't even bothered to learn what had really happened? Especially for a Deputy Headmistress.

She brought the black-haired student to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. Would he have to suffer from Professor Quirrel's stammering as a punishment? Instead, the Transfiguration Professor asked for someone named Wood. A burly fifth year boy came out of the class.

"Follow me you two." She walked briskly once more to an empty room where she chased away Peeves before slamming the door behind the tail-end of the Poltergeist.

"Potter, this Oliver Wood. Wood, I have found you a Seeker."

The student called Oliver looked very giddy at the news. "Are you sure, ma'am?"

"He was very fast on his broom to catch this over the lake." She produced the remembrall from her pocket. "I believe that it was your first time on a broom?" Seeing the first year nod, she pursued. "I believe that not even Charlie Weasley could have done what he did."

Oliver started to circle Harry. "Yes, he does have the build. A little training and we could have a shot at the Cup."

Professor McGonagall smiled at the statement. "Very good. I couldn't face Professor Snape last year when we were flattened by his team for weeks. I'll see if Professor Dumbledore can bend the rules, after I gain permission from Mr. Potter's guardians. Why don't you explain the situation to a potential player?"

Oliver nodded happily. As Professor McGonagall left the room, she heard the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain tell the first year. "Tell me Harry, may I call you Harry, what do you know about Quidditch?"

If a small smile was on her lips, well, any student who saw it thought he or she was hallucinating.

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**An: A special encouragement to a fellow Nanowriter: Dragon Silhouette, yamiyugi23 and all the others who are doing the challenge. Hope they'll all do well this year. I'm rooting for them as they are encouraging me as well.  
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**A part from that, what did you guys think? Once again, leave a little review. ^^v - Me smiling with a V for victory.  
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**Stay tune for the next chapter. I still haven't found a name for all of them yet.**


	6. Chapter 5: AL, FB and SSTB for short

**AN: Sorry for the delay in answering your review. School started about a week ago and I had a hard time finding time to write.  
So, the new chapter is up and about, hope you'll like it. =) [I swear, my chapters keeps on getting longer and longer. Over 8,000 words this time]  
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**A little answer to an anonymous reviewer Quidditch. He/She says "Lame waste of better spent time." - I'm sorry what? You read all 5 of my chapters and took your time to leave a review to consider it waster? Although, I must applaud you on the originality of the negative critic. I never read that one before. so BRAVO!  
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**Apart from that, enjoy my story.  
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**Chapter 5: Aunt's Love, Family Bonds and Stolen Stones To Be (or AL, FB and SSTB for short)**

While the supernatural was part of the daily life at the Court, Harry saw Magic, more particularly Shadow Magic, every day so much that it seemed so normal. But one thing that always amazed the young boy was the precognitive abilities of his Aunt Isis.

Isis Kaiba, née Ishtar, rarely used her powers that she gained from her Millennium Item. She knew that if she relied to much on her powers, it would not only bad for her own ego but the gods would punish her. Especially Ma'at the Goddess of Justice, the one to whom she pledged her loyalty. However, from time to time, her visions would sometimes hit her like in a dream or she would purposely dive into that intricate web weaved by the rivulets of possible futures and destinies. The latter usually do to the fact that she wanted to know if there was any danger to her family.

The day her nephew received his letter to the school for alternative magic, she had a weird feeling that things would change. On the night before his birthday, she had a dream filled with monsters and humans working together in a golden light lab. Waking up, she knew what she had to do. Just in case, she brought out her golden necklace that her family had guarded for centuries, took a deep breath, said a little prayer to her guardian deity before diving into that Web of possibilities.

She got the answer she needed to save her nephew's life this year. The rest would be up to him.

That was why that on his birthday, for the very first time, she gave him his new deck for the year.

—PotS—

Oliver Wood, Quidditch captain — strike that, Quidditch fanatic more likely — wanted to keep Harry's position as a Seeker a secret. Of course, being in a boarding school, filled with three hundred bored students, more or less, that needed to find some hobbies instead of work, gossiping was the number one activity here. Therefore, it was obvious that what should have been a secret, never remained a secret. It could have been because Angelina and Katie were talking in a corner that they thought was discrete. It could been the twins joking with their younger brother, Ronald or Ron. It could even have been a ghost or a portrait that may have overheard something.

In short, by dinner time that very same day, everyone from the lowest portrait to the solitary ghost, through the throngs of students aging from eleven to eighteen, had heard or was aware that Harry Potter could add to his tally of achievements, along with surviving the Killing Curse, of becoming the youngest Seeker in Hogwarts History.

The only problem was that Harry's dads hadn't given their permission yet. The boy in question had a feeling that they would be using that as an excuse to come to Hogwarts in order to … discuss the ramifications of what would happen if they so choose to agree.

Dean and Harry didn't really get what was happening. How could they since they hadn't been raised in the Wizarding World? Neville wasn't much of a help either, his interests were more steered towards the cultivation of plants and not the actions on broomsticks. Seeing the buzz of all the talking and the glances in his direction, Harry manned up to ask Ron Weasley, another dormate of his. The headache from the explanations were worth it.

A headache that soon cleared up as he saw his beautiful snow-white she-owl flow down from the starry rooftop. Just seeing her always lifted Harry's mood. Then, he saw that in her talons was a letter with a dark red ink address on the front. Stroking her ivory feathers as a thanks, Harry opened the very late letter amidst the stares of those who saw him receive it.

_"We should be arriving ten minutes after you received this letter, little one. Your daddy, father and I won't agree to allow you to play Quidditch without knowing everything about it. See you in a bit, my son. Your Papa who loves you very much."_

Happiness flooded through him as he read that small message scrawled in the very neat handwriting of the Librarian. He knew that his fathers would be coming, but to arrive so early? They must have wanted to make an impression. He could barely conceal a grin as he showed the letter to Dean and Neville. Dean was a tiny bit excited, like the fan-boy duelist that he was, while Neville was curious to meet the ones that raised Harry. After all, it was a part of Harry's past that few knew about and all were curious to know.

Effectively, nine minutes sharp after receiving the letter —Harry had counted as soon as he finished reading it —, the doors of the Great Hall were opened wide as three gorgeous men (for many of the young ladies in attendance) entered. Unable to contain himself, Harry quickly left the red and gold decorated table to throw himself in his papa's arms.

Ryo, used to the antics of his son, caught him pretty well —despite still looking frail and fragile to anyone, with his to big clothes that reinforced that idea — before kissing his son on top of his ruffled black hair. "Hello my little protégé, I hear someone went flying?"

Harry beamed one of those big smiles that no one at Hogwarts had seen so far. His face would just light up of happiness. "Yes papa. It was so much fun, like when I went sky-diving with Uncle Seto and Satoshi."

"That's good little one, but we will be having a small talk on putting your life in danger. Your Head of House wrote everything in detail, even if she was very impressed with your talents."

Still smiling, Harry left his papa's arms to go to see his daddy's. Marik hugged his son even tighter. The man had lived for nearly thirteen years straight underground. He had never been on a plane, if he could avoid it, preferring a boat or a train. So for him, it was even more frightening to hear that his son had been in the air, performing that daredevil stunt of his. Personally, he was against playing Quidditch in general, but if his husbands were ok with this, as well as his son, then he would agree with the majority. Nothing more, nothing less.

Then, Harry went to get a hug from the most difficult one from the trio: his father, Aapep. The man wouldn't show his love or affections, at least in the public eyes, but his family knew better. Behind that gruff mask, the man loved his family very much. So when Harry hugged his father tightly, it came to no surprise that he felt a strong, large, warm hand on his head, as well as 'seeing' the scowl on his father's face. He knew that many students were very scared of him. He hid a smirk.

Ryo Bakura-Ishtar walked towards the Head Table. "Sorry to bother you, Headmaster Dumbledore. My husbands and I received your letter, we really wanted to come here to speak to you in person regarding his position as a … Seeker was it?" Seeing the frenetic nods, he continued. "At the same time, we wanted to see our son as well. I hope you don't mind us coming here?" The smile was in such a way that Dumbledore couldn't say no. Marik and Aapep were chuckling inwardly, Harry had the same smile to make everyone jump to his bidding. Not that he would use it all the time, only for the big things.

"But of course. Would you like to sit and eat with your son?" Dumbledore would ask later as to how three Muggles could come to Hogwarts, in less than a few hours. On top of that, he hand't organized the trip for them through the Hogwarts Express.

"Thank you Headmaster Dumbledore. That would be most appreciated." Harry pulled his papa's and daddy's hand to sit down next to him while his father was in front of him. A space had been left purposely for them. Harry couldn't be even happier, chatting with his parents. He even introduced Dean and Neville who were quickly added the conversation.

Poor Neville was the victim of the Inquisition that was known as Ryo Bakura-Ishtar, also known as The Librarian. Every bit of information that could be pulled out of Neville's mind on certain aspects of the Wizarding World was taken, assimilated and mentally noted down to put in the Archives for later on.

Meanwhile, Dean was to busy watching and takings notes of the conversation between Marik and Aapep. This conversation was about the pros and cons of the god cards. Something only the King of Games had in his deck. It was amazingly awesome all this information he was getting that even the magazines didn't had. Well, those that he could afford with his pocket-money. No, this was the big stuff, the bragging rights to his friends in the neighborhood when he would come home during the holidays. (Mental Dean was doing the very happy dance, where jumping of joy was one of the most prominent actions).

Little did he know that Marik had goaded Aapep into that 'conversation' in order for the Thief to not attack the goggling little kiddies. They didn't want a homicide to paint their son in a negative picture. Even if they were little monsters like Pansy Parkinson who needed to disappear when the time was right. In a small part of his mind, Malik, his evil personality since the age of ten, was already reciting out loud possible scenarios where the Thief and the Priest could do to the body. The couple weren't to impress with the girl, but if they didn't do something, then Ryo would.

Nobody should ever, **ever** mess with Ryo. He was even more frightening than his two husbands combined. That was saying something, one was a jaded orphaned thief with years of anger and rage, the other had a evil split personality that murdered his own father by the age of ten before creating an elaborate plot to kill the one he was to serve. After accusing the latter of murdering his father. In short, Ryo wanting to protect his family was the most terrifying evil in the world.

It was always the quiet ones that had to be watched.

Dinner passed by as students alternately polished their plates by eating their foods, updated on the latest gossip and looking at Harry Potter with his dads. For many of the older years, Harry looked really his age of a young eleven years old boy. For the past month and a half, they had been slightly blindly by the boy's aura of fame from the numerous books, articles and other such items similar to that genre, without wanting to admit it of course.

Although, there had been rumors of many trials for fraudulent uses of the name Harry Potter. In particular, two authors were being sued, loosing their credibility as writers. One of them being a journalist with so many slanderous articles that her 'victims' were coming up in bunches to report her and complain. It was food for thought concerning the 'information' that they had been reading for the past years. What else had been written that was false as well from those authors?

As for the teachers, they were watching closely the adults. They didn't know who they were, apart from the fact that they raised Harry Potter. Dumbledore in particular had wanted to know why Mrs. Figg hadn't wanted to tell him about this _slight_ change in guardianship. She had kept her part of the bargain, as she kept her quarterly reports about the boy's health. Another interesting fact was that none of his guardian items had shown any change concerning the Blood Wards. Which meant that one of the three men was a relative from Lily's side of the family. Interesting, since he was sure that Lily's only living family was Petunia Dursley. Unless Lily didn't know herself.

Next to Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall was gearing up to argue for young Mister Potter to join the Quidditch team. She even had some leaflets to explain Quidditch for the parents of the Muggleborns if they came to a game. She would have to go to her office before going to the meeting. If all went well, she would have a new Seeker and finally beat her younger colleague's team hands down. He was getting a tad to smug for her taste what with winning the House Cup for seven years in a row AND winning the Quidditch Cup for the same amount of years.

It would seem that there would be a lot of words tonight that would be going around.

—PotS—

Out of all his dads, the one that Harry was the most connected to was Aapep, his father as strange at it would sound. At first, the green-eyed boy thought that the white-haired male hated him. He was frightened by those cold-browned eyes that seemed to zap all light from the atmosphere. Any reassurance from his Papa-Ryo and Daddy-Marik didn't seem to convince the young boy of five.

For the next six month after he had arrived at his new home, Harry would make sure to be out of Aapep's way. It wasn't to difficult, that man would to the very same thing by making sure to be out of Harry's way. During those said six months, Marik and Ryo were out of their minds as to how they could reconcile the both of them. It wasn't as if Aapep was being mean to Harry, more like he ignored the young boy. So how would you reconcile a frightened boy with a stubborned, mule-headed full-grown man?

Once again, Fate seemed to have intervened to bring two people together once again.

One of the bad aspects of being part of the Court was the fame that came along with it. Atem was the number one in the Dueling World, while his Consort was more discreet, preferring to run the administrative sides instead of doing tournaments. Seto Kaiba was both number two in the Dueling World and as a the president of one of the most important companies in the World. By marriage through his wife Isis Kaiba, née Ishtar, Marik Bakura-Ishtar brought the light of the public eyes on his own family.

So it was natural for some people to have nefarious plans for glory, money and power. It so happened that one of those plans had to have Harry kidnapped. By another significant piece of coincidence, on that fateful day where the five year old did get kidnapped by those lucky pieces of scum, Aapep was in the neighborhood doing one of his brooding walks.

Ryo and Marik weren't to sure what had happened exactly, both of the participants didn't want to talk about it, but the result was that a bound was formed between father and adoptive son. The only image that they saw was of a bloody Aapep shielding a trembling Harry amidst a room full of comatose people. Another interesting result was that Aapep took personal interest in teaching Harry self-defense.

Aapep wouldn't show it at all, but the young pup had taken a special place in his heart. Hence why they were going to do a special bonding-night tonight by searching Hogwarts. He wanted to see what the school could bring as a potential training ground.

When the eleventh hour came by, Aapep was waiting patiently for his son to come out from the portrait known as the "Fat Lady". The painted woman knew that something was out there, but couldn't see who or what it was. She strongly thought that it was a ghost, most likely Peeves trying to play a joke.

Then, she felt her portrait moved, meaning that another student was about to leave the Common Room for either exploring or a midnight stroll. _If you didn't see something, than it wasn't there_ was what most wizards thought. She couldn't answer the question if a student was out of bed if she didn't see them leave, hence why she closed her eyes to not see who it was. If she hadn't, she would have been surprised to see a first year with unruly black hair and bright green eyes join a stern looking man with pit-brown eyes and vivid white hair. She would have seen the chilling grin between them before disappearing into the shadowy darkness that were the corridors in this very old castle.

Their first stop would be that Forbidden Corridor on the Third Floor near the abandoned Charm classroom. They had some exploring to do. After all, it was the perfect bonding experience between a father and his son.

—PotS—

The first obstacle that they faced was a three-headed dog, most commonly known as a Cerberus in Greek Mythology, or as the Guardian of the Gates of the Underworld. It barked ferociously at them. Each of it's heads trying to snap, bite or crunch a piece of the walking meat.

Aapep didn't take any chances but hurriedly placed Harry behind him as they slowly got out of the room. Taking a deep breath, he was pleased to see that his little snakeling (not that he would ever call his son by that nickname) was only white in the face from the scare but nothing else. That was very good for a child.

"Right then, apart from that minor setback, what else did you notice in that room?" He questioned the younger boy. Let's see what else the boy remembered from his training.

"Nothing much except for a trapdoor at the dog's feet." No stuttering, a cool clear voice, no shaking anywhere, … yep his snakeling was the model student.

"And we do what in that case?"

"Research, research and more research. If there is a guardian, then there is something to hide. The stronger the guardian, the more valuable the treasure." The recitation of the lesson was perfect word-for-word.

"Very good Harry. Now, we are going to continue exploring this school very quickly. Then, by Christmas, I want you to write up a report on what you have learned from what is under the trapdoor. If you can find out what it is by the end of the year and steal it, I'll give you anything you want within our limited reason. What do you say?"

"Thank you father. I'll find out what is under that trapdoor." Harry already had an idea as to what his father could give him.

"Good. Now that that is out of the way, let's continue our survey. Where would you like to go next?" Aapep was taking a slight risk there. If the child was anything like his papa, he could already guess where was the next location.

Three … two … one … "The Library. There is another section that is considered as forbidden. I want to see what sort of books they have." Bingo, right on the dot. If there were books involved, especially rare ones, then he could count on Harry to go see them. At least he wasn't a bookworm, that was a relief at the very least.

"All right, the Forbidden Section of the Library it is." The sigh was very distinctive. But, his son was in charge of the next destination. It was a system that they had worked out when they started their little excursions in the night when Harry had turned seven.

They started to creep to the Library. The caretaker, Mr. Filch was hard to evade. Somehow he seemed to have a sixth sense for knowing that people were in the area. His cat was even harder to avoid with her sense of smell. The two of them were going to be excellent training exercises for Harry. The teachers would be a little easier since they would be tired after a long day of teaching.

The Forbidden Section was extremely interesting for the both of them. For Harry, there were some rare books that he knew his papa would be very happy to have them. If he didn't know where they came from, well, he was used to it from his husband. Aapep, on the other hand, saw some golden opportunities for growing their bank account. It would seem that they would have work to do to falsify the records and see which books would be perfect. At the very least, Harry would be able to read the books in this area when he wanted to, without needing any permission.

Their last stop was looking for the kitchens. They searched up until three in the morning. They found nothing so far. Another visit to be done later when there would be another chance to bond. And there would be some new chances, now that Aapep has felt the location of Hogwarts through the shadows. He would be coming back later on during Harry's schooling. This castle was a gigantic treasure trove, it would be a shame for many of the valuables to be covered in dust.

Aapep escorted his son back to his dormitory. He allowed himself, in the dark corner full of secrets, the Thief allowed himself to kiss his son on his forehead. It was another little secret to join the darkened silence. Another little brick building the bond between them.

Harry beamed a smile at his father. Then, he slipped back in the Common Room, up the stairs to his dorm before snuggling himself under the covers. He will have six hours of sleep, give or take an hour or a couple of minutes. When Ron will wake up, his snores will stop, thus Harry would wake up from the silence. With Harry's training, his ears were more attuned to the slight changes in his surroundings. During the first week, Harry had a much harder time falling asleep since he had been used to silence.

His dreams were filled with three-headed dogs, trapdoors, labyrinths, books with mystical writings and kitchen pantries. It was already a new day, with wonderful opportunities to play during his week-end.

—PotS—

Hermione Jean Granger was exactly like Harry had pegged her to be. A high IQ girl, lonely due to her intelligence, only child and still trying to fit in. He could see her sprouting out information for any reason just to try and make a conversation with the disgruntled student, hoping that it would be an ice-breaker. Waiving her hand frantically in class, just to receive some form of affection even if it was only from the teachers. It would seem that her parents were very busy since she had the form of being a "teacher's pet" — for lack of a better term to describe it — down to an art.

He tried to leave discreet advice for her, in form of anonymous letters. He couldn't talk to her yet since she would always interrupt him, or give him some snooty advice that would make Harry so mad that he had to stay away from her for a couple of days so that he wouldn't do or say anything irreversible.

But it didn't change the fact that Harry wanted to help the girl. She reminded him slightly of himself before his adoption and the couple of months after the adoption. Hence why he tried talking to the girls that shared a dorm with the bushy-haired girl. Lavender and Parvati were nice, but didn't have the maturity needed to understand Hermione's attitude. He couldn't blame then, they were eleven years old after all and they didn't have an 'old soul' to gain it at that age — which was a relief that not everything was dark and bad for everyone, Harry had seen that to many times.

Ronald Weasley (or Ron as he preferred to be called), on the other hand was a bit of a conundrum for Harry. The boy was smart not by books, but in logic. He could run circles around you in chess games. Even so, Ron seemed to be unable to use his head. Harry had learned that he came from a large family with five older brothers and a younger sister, while at the same time, wasn't living a very glamourous life since the family had difficulty to make ends meet.

Being the youngest of many siblings, overlooked by a flustered mom while dad worked to many hours a day, … Harry could understand the fact that he was trying to stand out. His twin brothers, Fred and George, were known as jokesters in the tower. So it would stand as logical that Ron and this unknown little sister were the perfect test subjects for their jokes. As a result, Ron had developed a bad viewpoint concerning social relationship. The weak were to be picked on when the adults couldn't see. He wasn't being intentional mean, it was only what he had seen and learned since he was young.

That was why Harry was sure was the main reason Ron was picking on Hermione. He had found the weak link in the group. And like he had learned when he was young, he picked on her since he had the advantage. However, in this situation, instead of playing practical jokes on her, he tormented her with words and actions.

So, when the situation had escalated at Charms during All Hallows Eve (more commonly know as Halloween for the majority of the population in this day and age), Harry wasn't that surprised.

It all started with Professor Flitwick — a charming teacher, albeit on the small side which held his most dangerous side — finally teaching a very cool spell in the eyes of his students. After two whole months of learning proper wand mouvements —a spell could change it's effects if you jabbed the tip of your wand then if you jabbed the whole wand, or if you flicked instead of swished, … —, the proper pronunciation of certain words — latin-based languages did **not** have the same basic sounds as the real language — and finally, the stressing of certain syllables.

The last one was the most important. Unlike Shadow Magic, where the caster could speak like he normally did to use his magic —with the effects varying on if you shout your intentions, speak in a normal tone or whisper in the wind of solitudes —, this … Core Magic (as his Papa had found information from where came the magical abilities of the Witches and Wizards, hence the name) needed certain words to work. Even during the era of Ancient Egypt, Words were known as powerful tools for magic. It was the same here as well. If you didn't vocalize a sound like it was supposed to be, stressed a syllable that shouldn't be there would be results. In the best case scenarios, magic wouldn't manifest itself — this was true for about ninety-eight percent of mispronounced spells —, in the worst cases, the backlashed could go from mild to horrifying. You cannot mess with Magic and not expect some consequences.

That was the main reason as to why they were fewer and fewer Spell Crafters in existence. It was much to dangerous with an seventy-three percent of mortality rate if you had a mentor, approximately eighty-seven percent if your mentor had between two to four apprentices, and practically ninety-nine point seventy-eight percent if you tried to learn by yourself. It was much safer to use the current spells in existence. Magic would give insight to those few chosen that could read Her, meaning that they would be able to create new spells to channel Her. At the moment, there was no such chosen.

But we are getting a bit of track with these tedious explanations. Tedious, just like those two months in the Charms classes repeated by the Transfiguration classes, on how to hold a wand, say the incantations, focus on the effect, … Harry could go at great lengths on the subject that wasn't as mystical, nor as magical as casting a spell.

The Levitation Charm had many possibilities to satisfy his kleptomaniac abilities. After, he was being by the best in the field. Not to mention, he had an assignment to finish if he wanted his father to accompany him to every junior and all ages tournaments this summer. His father hated being put in the spotlight, Harry loved the double effect of doing that as well as having his father watch him duel.

When his (current favorite) professor announced that they would be taught a spell which was called the Levitation Spell, Harry perked up in interest, thinking that he would get the hang of it quickly. Turned out that it was quite the opposite.

First, Harry practiced the swish and flick that Professor Flitwick had showed them, to be sure that he got the mouvements done to a T. Then, he mouthed the words a couple of times. _Wingardium Leviosa_, something that he wasn't use to pronounce.

He tried to levitate his feather, intoning his spell while moving his wand in the exact same way that he was taught, Harry expected at least a flutter from his feather. Nothing! Nothing happened _at all_. Well, that was just a minor setback, it wasn't like he was a complete genius concerning magic.

Five minutes and about twenty to twenty-five incantations later, Harry was the proud owner of a floating white feather gently capering and cavorting in the air amidst some other feathers of different colors — so that the Professor could see in the blink of an eye who had done it or not. (It was scary as to just how intelligent and observant the man was.).

Dean, having mastered a bit more quickly the spell, was currently helping Neville who could make his feather float from a couple of centimeters. Neville seem to understand the theory behind the spell, but just couldn't access the magic he needed to finish the spell. At least, that was what Harry thought, he wasn't to sure if Core Magic and Shadow Magic were the exact same thing. He'll have to ask his papa to be sure.

In the row just in front of them were Hermione Granger and Ronald 'Ron' Weasley. Usually far away from one another due to a difference in where they liked to be seated, Ron's tardy arrival after lunch had forced him to sit at the front row next to the smart Gryffindor female student.

Naturally, the red-head wasn't in a very good. How could he when his neighbor levitated her feather barely on the fourth time while his was still firmly stuck to the desk? On top of that, he was part of the rare few whose feather hadn't lift off. Like the color of his hair, Ron was firmly, steadily going towards the emotion representing that same color. Hermione wasn't helping the situation by trying to help him (conducingly without meaning to) and by naively ignoring the upcoming eruption of Mount Weasley.

"You're saying it wrong." Harry heard Hermione snap at the other boy after another attempt of making his feather levitate. His latest attempt was by saying the words while his arms whirl winded around. "It's Wing-gar-dium Levi-o-sa," she insisted by separating each and every sound, "make the 'gar' nice and long."

Ron was getting redder and redder in the face. "You do it if you are so smart." He snarked at the bushy-haired girl.

Smiling, Hermione complied easily. Swishing and flicking her wand, she intoned. "Wingardium Leviosa". Her feather, that had been grounded for the demonstration, drifted in the air to join, once again, the ballet of brightly colored feathers near the ceiling.

Ron's face grew even stormier than before. Hence the mimicking of steps as he stomped out of the classroom after another hour of torture. When Seamus mocked him gently for being one upped by a girl, Mount Ron finally exploded in his usual fashion. "How can you stand her? Honestly, she is a nightmare!" Being the usual obtuse person that he is, Ron didn't notice that his outburst was heard by a three corridor radius.

Seamus was to shocked to retort right away. He didn't have any time to retort before something barreled between the two boys. Seamus recognized the thing as Hermione, but what he wasn't sure was if there were tears in her eyes or not.

Lavender and Parvati tore down Ron for his one to many over sensitive words. This was the straw that broke the camel's back concerning the bullying. Harry was staying in the back of the group, seeing if he had to break the group up. Hermione needed some time to cry out all the stress of the first two months, if by the end of the feast she had not come out from her hiding place, he would bring her something to eat.

The banquet was even more magnificent than the banquet they had at the beginning the year. A thousand of black bats were flying around the ceiling. Another thousand more flew about in big black clouds that swooped around and on top of the tables, making the candles in and out of the pumpkins sputter, adding an illusion of terror and horror to the festive air.

And the food was another matter entirely. The pumpkin juice seemed to have an extra spice that was different from the rest of the day to day juice. Hot potatoes, with bowls of creams, butter and thyme were placed a bit everywhere, steamy creamy boiling soups of different kinds were placed in strategically chosen places, boiling corn and other types of food filled an overflown covered table with golden plates and utensils.

Then, the banquet was interrupted by a well-placed act from their Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor. He stormed through the door with a cry of "Troll … in the dungeons … thought you aught to know." Then, he fainted flat on his front, in the eyes of every student. So maybe not an act. Another thing that niggled in the back of Harry's mind was what sort of Defense Against the Dark Arts professor worth his salt would faint after warning of a danger related to his job? On top of that, a troll wasn't that difficult to corral somewhere so that the students were evacuated to safety.

As cries of panic, mixed with students running around like some headless chickens, rang out in the Great Hall, powerful bangs were heard. "SILENCE!" Dumbledore shouted. What he ordered came to be he continued with his orders. "Now, students, follow your prefects to your Common Rooms. Hufflepuffs and Slytherins, take the side secure routes and stay in your dorms until the situation has been contained. The feast will be brought to your dorms, so please continue with the events. Please stay calm as you move and everything will be alright."

Eight columns were formed, two on either side of the tables, behind each Prefect of every House. As the Gryffindor column started to go back to the tower, Harry realized something. _Hermione didn't know about the troll!_ Ducking away from the line of red and gold colors to the one with yellow and black, Harry wiggled and weaved through the quick stream flow of students towards the girls' bathroom on the third floor. He was glad to have asked Lavender where Hermione was _before_ the beginning of the feast.

To concentrated at getting the young girl to safety, even if the troll was far away from the third floor, Harry didn't notice two other shadows follow him. He did, however, got aware of the fact when two pair of hands pulled him to a dark corner on the third floor, as a pair of footsteps rang out in the cleared hallway. Harry stilled himself, ready to counter-attack if there was a problem, until his mind realized who his two capturers were: Dean and Neville.

Not to long after, the owner of the footsteps, Professor Snape, came into view. He was walking briskly down that very same corridor where Harry had been just a couple of seconds ago. The green-eyed boy was suddenly struck of the Potions Professors final destination: the room where the three-headed dog was, the room with the treasure. But why? Why would the good professor go there when the troll was in the dungeons? After all, the dungeons were the Head of Slytherin's domain, just like the other Head of Houses had there own as well.

The mystery was getting even more interesting. Harry had despaired getting an adventure like his fathers and rest of the family.

When the good Professor turned a corner, away from the alcove where the trio were, Harry pulled Neville's hand away from him mouth. "What are you guys doing here?" Harry whispered furiously. He wasn't giving any chance of being heard if the teacher was still in the area.

"We were following you." Dean whispered back. "Why did you leave the line? There is still a troll out there."

"In the dungeons, not on the third floor. I know that, but does Hermione know it too?" The boy retorted back.

"She's here?" Neville whispered fearfully.

"Yes, in the bathroom somewhere on this floor. Let's go get her, then run back to the dormitory." Harry explained the plan.

It would have been a good plan to if not for a tiny crimp in his plan. Tiny would be an euphemism for the size of the crimp. The booming noise of it's shuffling steps were heard from very far followed closely by the dark grumbling. The smell followed closely afterwards. The three boys were petrified by their imagination of what a troll could look like.

Then … then they saw the monster lumbering down from when they had come from. It was a monstrous sight. The monster was disproportionate in size, width and hight. Twelve feet tall, its coloring was a dull, granite grey. Short thick legs, like tree trunks with flats, contrasted with those very long arms that trailed to the floor with a huge wooden club that was dragging along as well. On top of its lumpy body, like some sort of boulder, had a small bald head perched upon it, it was as if a coconut was on top of a granite rock.

All in all, if Harry was less shocked since he was around Duel Monsters, but the smell and sound was to much. He was more use to the visual. Then, he felt warmth surround him, soothing him to belay his fears. His mind more clearer than ever, he saw a room across the hall where they would be able to lock it while they went to look for a teacher to help them.

Tapping on the wall next to his friends, he gestured with his heads towards the open door. Hope lighted their eyes as they nodded. "Alright, Neville, Dean, get ready to lock the troll in the room. I'll go and divert the troll's attention so that it would go in." His friends nodded.

Taking a deep breath, Harry caressed his cards in his pockets for some courage, he left the alcove while shouting some inconstancies.

The troll stopped, grunted savagely before following the small meat thing that had ran into his trail. His orders were to go to the smelly yummy area then wait for more instructions from the Master. Following the meat-sack, he found himself locked into a room. He would have to get out to meet the Master in the corridor. Some sniveling came from somewhere in the room. Turning around, his ears and puny brain were being attacked with a girlish scream of terror.

The scream reverberated in the corridor, reaching the ears of three boys of the same year. "Hermione" they intoned together. They ran back to the room, now they knew it was the girls' bathroom. Quickly, they re-opened the door to see the club about to descend on some sinks not far from the opposite wall. Cowering next to the wall was a small, brown curly hair girl in the school's uniform of the Griffin's House.

Neville, gaining strength from somewhere inside of him, took a piece of rubble that he chucked at the troll. It hit it on the head. Grunting, the club fell way off the side. He turned towards the intruders. The boys, following Neville's example, continued to chuck rubble at the troll. They even shouted at Hermione to move and get away from where she was.

Something that was harder to do than say, she was just as paralyzed as they were in the corridor. A thought passed through the troll's mind, there was an easier prey behind him then the three in front of him. He turned around once again to attack the mud-meat being that was screeching in his ears. Hurting his head a lot, more than the hits he received from the three others that he was to attack.

Seeing that Hermione was about to be hurt once again, Harry knew that he had to do something. Taking his deck from his pocket, Harry drew a card. It was a trap card. The image was divided into four quarters. Each quarter had a symbol for each element: flames for Fire, waves for Water, cloud for Air and mountains for Earth. Channeling his power into the card, Harry shouted "**Created Call. Come to me Aer. Guard and protect Hermione**" His deck glowed brightly, before a part of it detached itself to stand in between the young girl and the monster.

The light took the shape of a humanoid form with clothes before it disappeared, letting everyone see clearly the newcomer. He was a blond man whose hair fell until mid-back, which underlined his quicksilver eyes. Two pointy ears peaked out from his hair, giving him a bit of an elf-like quality, while he also had three small white dots in a shape of a triangle on his forehead finished. His clothing was a dusty white toga and brown sandals that didn't touch the ground. The man was floating a couple of centimeters from the floor.

The troll stopped in its tracks, his pea brain not computing the new factor that had appeared in the equation. It grunted once in questioning. Then once again as he decided to ignore the new person to get back to his previous prey. Said prey that had stopped crying.

Aer, as Harry had called him, looked unimpressed at the troll. It was just as powerful than it was stupid. So it wouldn't be a shame if the monster in front of him looses a few more brain cells. Lifting an arm, the sort of elf pointed at the club. Invisible winds ripped the mace from the troll's hand making it floating in the air far above the granite grey boulder-like monster.

Said monster was to stupidly looking down in the hand where he used to have a weapon. It didn't hear the whistling sound that was the club falling down on his puny head. The weapon floated back into the air before falling again and again and again … a couple more times before the troll was truly and utterly KOed.

The rumbling vibrations resonated everywhere, sure to gather any teachers that were in the area. Aer bowed slightly to Hermione before nodding in respect to the three boys. In a bright light, he disappeared back into Harry's deck. Deck that quickly vanished into one of his pockets as he told them "later" when the other students were about to demand an explanation. His eyes pleaded for them to keep his secret.

Barely a couple of seconds passed, leading up to the noise of running feet that announced the teachers that heard the booming noise of something. Luck would have it (or was it very bad luck?) that their Head of House was to barrage into the room. Soon followed by two of her colleagues, Professor Snape and Professor Quirrell. The latter sat down on one of the cubicles, clutching his heart while whimpering. (Loosing the little credibility he had left in Harry's opinion).

"What on earth were you thinking of?"Cold fury in her voice resonated in her words. "You're lucky you weren't killed. Why aren't you in your dormitory?" Her lips were pinched so tightly that they became white. Harry had never seen her this way, a mixture of furious and worried.

Professor Snape was on the side, scrutinizing the troll so that he could give the illusion of not listening to the ramming down between the Head of House and her students. (Hermione had joined the group for comfort.)

"Please Professor, we wanted to warn Hermione about the troll." Neville timidly told her. "She hadn't come down to the feast, so when we remembered that she hadn't been warned, we tried to look around to find a teacher. Nobody was in the area so we quickly went here to get her and go back to our dormitory. Then, the troll was coming down the hall and we saw this room was open." He quailed under the deputy Headmistress' look.

Dean, a bit more courageous, continued the explanation, zeroing the look from Neville to him. "We thought that if we locked the troll in here, then we could get a teacher so that you could get rid of it. What we didn't know was that it was the girls' bathroom where Hermione was. When we heard her scream, we rushed back in to make her get away from the troll."

Professor Snape had finished looking at the troll. "Then can you please explain as to how four first year students took down a troll while even a grown man has difficulties doing the exact same thing." Cold coal eyes stared into secretive bright green ones.

"Desperation, Professor." Harry answered for the rest of them. "Hermione was about to get hit by a club, so Neville threw rubble at it. For a minute or so, we had distracted it from Hermione, but she was frozen in fear. Then, while it was waiving it's club, we all got the same idea: to levitate it." Which technically wasn't a lie, if they checked their wands, then the Levitation Charm would be there. Besides the troll had been knocked down by a flying club. "Three Levitation Charms on the club made it fly and hit the troll on the head. That's how we took him down. Personally, as long as I don't see another one in my life, the happier I will be."

All of the students nodded eagerly.

There was, unfortunately, one last thing to be addressed, the main reason as to why Hermione was in this place instead of the Halloween banquet. One strong look erased any wanting to hide the truth from her. Hermione explained to her the incident that happened earlier that day.

"How long as Mr. Weasley been bothering you like that, Miss Granger?" Cold fiery anger burned in Professor McGonagall's eyes, so discretely that only Harry noticed it.

Noticing that Hermione was about to lie about the situation, he decided to intervene. "Since the first day, Professor. In the beginning, they were only words, so most of us didn't say anything, hoping that it would die down. Today's argument shocked us all to the point that we were going to talk to him about what he was doing."

Nostrils flared slightly, lips pinched thinner, the Transfiguration teacher was holding herself back, waiting to be in control of her emotions, once more. "I see. Well then, I won't be taking any points from you, since you weren't intentionally looking for the troll. Still, I expect you to look for a teacher the next time you notice a student missing. The same goes for any signs of bullying. You should have gone straight to me in the very beginning."

Taking a deep breath for what she was about to say next, she continued. "Mr. Potter, Mr. Longbottom and Mr. Thomas, you will receive ten points each for trying to protect a fellow student. Now, I will escort the four of you to your Common Room where the rest of the feast has been moved. I will also have a chat with Mr. Weasley about his behavior."

As they entered the Common Room through the portrait of the Fat Lady, the boys were group hugged by Hermione — they still wondered up to this day how she did it, since she was so slim — before she whispered thanks to them.

You couldn't have a deeper friendship then one where you saved one another from a troll.

* * *

**An: Just in case you didn't know:**

**Papa = Ryo Bakura-Ishtar**

**Daddy = Marik Bakura-Ishtar**

**Father = Aapep Bakura-Ishtar**

**A little information concerning the card that Harry used. It belongs to his deck (all rights belong to me please). The two cards in question are called "Created Call" and "Air's Homunculus".**

**Created Call is a trap card and it's effects are : "If there is no monster on your side of the field, you can special summon a monster with name "Homunculus".**

**Air's Homunculus is a three-star monster card with 1300 attack points and 1100 defense points. It's part of a series of four cards that can be used in a ritual to summon one of the top cards of the deck. Its effect is also "If "Fire's Homunculus" is on the field, your opponent looses 300 Life Points during his Main Phase."**


	7. Chapter 6: The Assassination attempt at…

**AN: Well, the new chapter has just arrived. That would be the good news.  
**

**The bad news is that I am waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay behind my quota of words for the NaNoWriMo so I may not be able to finish it. (Unless I write about 3,303 words per day. Strongly improbable due to RL).  
**

**Another piece of bad news for me is that my story has gone off-track my original planning. At the moment, I was suppose to be at year 5 at Hogwarts, not happening here. Which means I will have to write sequels for every year. Hence the title change by the next chapter.  
**

**Thank you all for your continuous support and enjoy this chapter.**

* * *

**Chapter 6: The Assassination attempt at the Quidditch Match.**

Halloween cemented the bond between the quadrumvirate friends — Hermione didn't like the fact that she had to look up the dictionary to find out that it was the synonym for "four" — which was a blessing in itself. With Hermione on board, her study-style also spilled into their life.

The best thing was that she never gave them the answers. She would proof-read their essays, explain something that they didn't understand and would organize a chart for when they can work together. She wasn't the only brain behind the operations. Dean, Neville and Harry each brought on board their own expertise of certain subjects, dividing the workload between the four of them.

But Hermione was the one behind the whole organization of their time. This helped immensely when Harry started to do Quidditch practice on top of his studies and late night strolls to get more information on the trapdoor under the three-headed dog. He may have a lead concerning what could be the treasure. Something small, oval and coarsely wrapped-up in brown paper that was taken from Gringotts by Rubeus Hagrid, the Keepers of Keys and Groundskeeper of Hogwarts. The man was much to big to be able to forget him, even if they only met in passing at the bank. The next step was to talk to the man to see what else they were missing. The How was still in the planning process.

Somehow, his very first Quidditch match gave him the opportunity to talk to the half-giant gentle man. Well, talking would be a strong word, more like gaining some inside information concerning the half-giant, half-man.

One of the links were about his birth parents, Lily and James Potter.

— PotS —

November was one the cruelest months of the year. It was the period where you would enter the cold weather without it being the coldest month. It was also the month of the beginning of the Quidditch season. This year, the random drawing of the teams made that it was Gryffindor against Slytherin. In preparation against one of the top four teams, Oliver would make many last-minute training sessions with exam questions to boot for Harry! Oliver's excuse was that Harry's position was the most precarious, being the one to get hit most of the time.

Hermione was of a great help as well. She found him the perfect book called "Quidditch Through the Ages" that helped him study for those surprise exams, teaching Harry some surprising things. For example, there were seven hundred ways of committing a Quidditch foul. The weirdest thing was that practically all of them had happened during a World Cup match in 1473. Despite all those fouls, generally aimed at the Seeker for being the smallest, the fastest and the most valuable player, no players have ever been killed. Disappeared, maybe like those Quidditch referees who would re-appear a couple of months later in the Sahara Desert.

The day of the match, Harry had so many butterflies that it was worst than his official match. At least in Duel Monsters, you didn't have to fly in there. The morning was bright and clear, with the Great Hall filled with chatter of the students looking forward to a fantastic Match. Harry Potter was to be the new Gryffindor Seeker.

Ignoring the whispers was easier than Harry thought. The trick was the smell of all the fried food in the Great Hall. The day of his first Match, Harry had some bland food for the morning and his fathers' support. But at Hogwarts, the fried smell was to overwhelming that his stomach rebelled against eating something.

It would of course, it would have happened if he hadn't had some very concerned friends. Hermione was the spear leader of the movement, making her more of a mother hen than his papa, forcing Neville and Dean to help her force-feed Harry.

"Just a piece of toast, Harry. Try some." The Gryffindor female student coaxed the Gryffindor male student.

"I'm not hungry Hermione." Harry moaned slightly, he was a bit scared of being in the eyes of everyone of the school, the Board of Governments — Professor McGonagall told him that they would come to see if they could change the rules for the first years playing in the Quidditch team, maybe in a sort of Little Division League for the First, Second and Three years —, his parents and the rest of his family.

"You have to eat something, Harry. You need your strength." Hermione insisted.

"You should listen to Hermione, mate." Dean added his own two cents. "Seekers are always the one to be targeted."

"Thanks Dean and Hermione. You too Neville." Harry thanked them. Neville was being sneakier than his counterparts. Instead of talking him into eating, he made a bowl of porridge with some freshly cut white slices of apples, pieces of red strawberries and circles of light yellow bananas topped with some golden lines of honey to make it look for appetizing. It would seem that the boy was started to grow a back bone.

Harry pecked a bit from the bowl. It was bland enough for his taste, but nutritious enough to get him through the whole match. Hermione, watching the time as usual, shooed him away to go change. The twins were her 'mode of transportation' as they accompanied the young boy to the Gryffindors locker rooms.

Half-hour later, the whole team lined up in front of Oliver. Outside the tent, Harry could hear the crowd cheering with a lot of gusto. The butterflies in his stomach had slowed down but hadn't completely settled.

He was started out of his thoughts about the upcoming match by Oliver clearing his throat. "Okay, men …" he started the beginning of his speech. It sounded like something well rehearsed.

"And women!" Stated Angelina Johnson cheerfully, one of the three beautiful Chasers that were part of the team. Everyone chuckled at the correction.

"And women …" Wood was forced to admit. It wasn't easy to change his speech after memorizing when he was a first year. The girls had joined the team the same year he had become captain. So really, it wasn't that hard to change his speech, but it did bring a certain lightness before a match. Let everyone laugh a little to let loose the nervousness. He continued his speech. "This is it."

"The big one …" Intervened Fred Weasley, always ready to make a joke, this one was never getting old for the whole team.

"… the one we've all been waiting for," carried on George, the trickster inside him following his twin's lead.

"We know Oliver's speech by heart," Fred staged whispered to Harry, "we were on the team last year."

"Shut up, you two." Wood told them pleasantly. All fired up, he continued his little speech that he had memorized the first few days of his arrival at Hogwarts. "This is the best team Gryffindor's had in years. We're going to win." The team cheered on. "I know it." He glared at them all as if to say, "Or else."

But it wasn't necessary. The whole team was ready to take down Slytherin in this Ultimate Battle. It was the First Step in Defending Man Kind! Mortal Kombat where it was All About Life and Not About Death!

It was … the FIRST QUIDDITCH GAME OF THE SEASON between **TWO** MORTAL **ENEMIES**! (Looks like Harry had a bit to much of an imagination, heavily influenced by his parents stories of their youth in Domino City.)

Both teams walked to the middle of the field. Madam Hooch was the referee, as always. Her yellow eyes stared down both teams, lingering especially to the two captains. "Now, I want a nice clean game from both you." She signaled the two captains to step forward. "Shake hands please."

Hands squeezed more than shook. Knuckles turning white from the pressure. Both captains took a step back, not fast enough to be separated from each other.

Madam Hooch ordered. "Mount your brooms please."

Both teams obeyed. Harry mounted his broom, a Nimbus 2000 — one of the best brooms on the market, or so his fathers had heard, they only got the very best and were rich enough to afford it.

Madam Hooch blew sharply in a silver whistle. Everybody kicked hard off the ground. They each did a round of the stadium in different directions before meeting in the middle in different formations. The yellow-eyed referee stood in the middle of the field, broom by her side, a red ball in her hands.

Two shrill sharp blasts, the ball was thrown high in the air and … the **GAME BEGAN**!

Harry flew in the air, the broom moving to the barest of his touches. In the background, Lee Jordan — a good friend to the Weasley twins and prankster extraordinary — was doing the commentary of the match. Professor McGonagall — pranksters' radar extraordinary — was watching him very closely to make sure that the commentary wasn't biased. He was the only commentator that wanted to do the job, so they were stuck with him. Jordan had still three years to find a successor to continue.

Harry had never seen a real Quidditch match. However, the team spirit was particular strong. The three female Chasers weaved, dodged and zigzagged in the air, scoring goals after goals into the opposing hoops.

Fred and George were living up to their nicknames of "the Human Bludgers". Zipping all around the field, it was hard for the bludgers to actually attack their teammates — except when the Slytherin Batters send the Bludgers their way —, while the poor Slytherin flyers had to be more aware of their surroundings.

If the Slytherin Chasers did get the Quaffle, then Oliver Wood, the Keeper of all Keepers, was able to stop most of them. Even if Oliver didn't stop all of the shots, his blocking rate was about ninety-seven point six percent, the highest percentage of the four Keepers.

The youngest Seeker of the century took one or two minutes watching the match very closely, needing some time to calm his nerves. Then, he circled the field to see where the Snitch was. Oliver had told him the strategy for this match. _"Remember, the Snitch is worth a hundred and fifty points. Wait for us to score at least fifty points before you go actively searching for the golden ball. That way, that will launch a psychological fear on the other teams. Not only would we have a very large gap that will assure us the Quidditch Cup, but the other teams will be a bit more nervous when they will face us. Do you understand, Harry_?" It was clear as chrystel. So he passed the time by helping the team the best he could, keeping an eye out for the Snitch.

The first time he thought he saw something golden shine in the field, it was one of the twins' watches. (Harry made a mental note to tell both of the twins to take of their watches for the next match. They had been very lucky that Oliver hadn't noticed their little slip up.)

The second sighting of the golden little ball was at the end of the field, not to far from the Slytherin side of the field. Actually, it was right behind the middle hoop, hidden from the opposing Seeker's sight by the very large frame of Slytherin Keeper Bletchley. He flew straight to it, the intent being to block the other Seeker, Terrence Higgs, from getting to it. So far, if he had noticed the board correctly, there was a thirty point gap between Slytherin and Gryffindor. His team needed more time before the grand finally.

Terrence Higgs soon saw the same little golden ball that Harry did. It didn't help that Lee Jordan, Student Quidditch Sportscaster, saw it as well as said it out loud with a "Wait a minute, was that the Snitch?". Opportunity lost to scare the Snitch it would seem.

Higgs was a bit more closer to the Snitch than Harry, but Harry had the broom advantage over him. Neck to neck, they flew to their goal. It was a battle between the Alpha and the Omega, the little first year with the old seventh year, … . Harry knew that if he didn't anything drastic, he would be forced to catch the Snitch a bit earlier than planned.

VLAM!

The young boy went spinning out of control after nearly whamming into something. No, … not something, … someone: Marcus Flint, the Slytherin Quidditch Captain and the biggest student Harry had ever seen. The Slytherin Captain had flew just in Harry's way so that they were forced to collide. If his fathers hadn't bought him the Nimbus Two Thousand, if Harry wasn't so hyperaware of what was happening around him — a byproduct of his training from his father — … then there would have been a major accident on the field.

The crowd booed angrily at the smug player. Technically, he hadn't done something illegal to get him thrown out of the game. Madam Hooch still offered a penalty shot for the Gryffindor team. Alicia Spinnet took the shot with no problem, even if she was livid at the cowardly action.

The only bright side that could be said — amidst the howling crowd of angry people — was that the Snitch disappeared. Which allowed the Gryffindor team more time to widen the gap of points on the scoreboard. Taking a bit of altitude, Harry circled the field like a hawk.

Flint's maneuver had shaken the young boy, spooking him slightly. He needed to calm himself down again. Thus, he took his time to watch for the Snitch as well as the crowd. The first thing that caught his eyes was a very large banner.

It was one of the bedsheets that had been gnawed on by Scabbers, Ron's pet rat. On it was the words "**Potter for President**" in big bolded magical multicolor ink — the ink changed into every shades of colors that you could possibly imagine in waves every couple of seconds — with a very mighty realistic lion underneath. Harry was aware of Dean's artistic abilities, it wasn't a very large stretch to imagine that he was behind this little drawing.

A warm feeling spread in his body to realize that he had such good friends. He never really had such friends like that. Satoshi being the exception since they were cousins. The green-eyed boy had more like acquaintance than friends. In the beginning, it was because Harry didn't know how to, what with Dudley chasing all his friends, the Dursley's nasty little rumors about him that made moms cross the street with their children. Then, it was because he was to high in the social circles, Uncle Seto was the President of Kaiba Corporations and the rest of his family and friends were in the Dueling Network. So it was hard to see who was your friend and who wanted the fame.

But here at Hogwarts, nobody really knew who he was. Sure, there was the whole Boy-Who-Lived thing, but nothing really current. The students were slowly getting use to seeing Harry as just an average little boy. While his housemates in the same year were becoming a tighter group — they were eight of them in total. The bonds of friendship were easy to form when your were young, in a small group of people and in a school that was also a boarding one.

The warm feeling inside of him intensified when he saw his fathers in the front rows in the teachers' stand. You couldn't mistaken the unusual white hair does and the silver one. The clothing were another big giveaway: everybody except them wore cloaks as they wore … _Mundane_ cloths. Some of the School Board of Governors were wrinkling their noses and _discretely_ tried to sit away from the trio. Aapep and Marik cheering on like maniacs didn't arrange their impressions. Ryo was watching with that little smile of annoyance or suffering depending on the angle you could look. His husbands have always been a bit … the most softest term would be exuberant, if you could apply that to them.

Harry flew by them, waiving a little before getting his head back in the game. The match had progressed nicely, Gryffindor leading with a sixty point gaps between the two teams, so Harry was allowed to look for the Snitch according to the Game Plan (Capital letters were included, from your truly the Keeper of the Gryffindor Team … Oliver Wood).

As he was searching for that elusive quicksilver — in speed not in color — golden winged ball, all of a sudden, his broom started to buck. His hands quickened around the handle as Harry held on for dear life. Not knowing what was happening, Harry tried to move his boom downwards and near some of the stands. It didn't worked, as the broom bucked higher while moving to the center of the field.

Harry's screams for help were drowned out by the screams of the cheering. Nobody was noticing that something was wrong for the first thirty seconds of the actions happening.

His papa was the first one to notice something was not right with his son. His father and daddy were just seconds away from noticing it as well. They were shouting, bringing the attention on Harry who was going higher and higher with the bucking broom.

The match had stopped as the players tried to find a way to catch Harry. The twins, Fred and George, tried to reach their underclassman, but the broom leaped away from them, bringing Harry higher still. So they stopped and circled below him, ready to catch him.

Oliver and Flint were coordinating the rest of the players to maximize the catching space. The Slytherins may bend the rules to gain an advantage in a Quidditch match, but they still took the safety of the younger years seriously. Especially the little first years, whatever House they were from.

In the stands, Dean, Hermione and Neville were wondering what was happening. Seeing something weird in the teachers' stand, Hermione borrowed the binoculars from the Ground Keeper, Hagrid, that was sitting next to them. Looking at the teachers, Hermione found something weird. Professor Snape was muttering under his breath, staring straight at Harry and he wasn't blinking once.

"It's Professor Snape." She hissed angrily, just loud enough for Dean and Neville.

"Professor Snape, are you sure?" Dean asked, it was hard to think that the dour Professor could be involved.

"Yes, I am!" Hermione insisted, still looking to see if there was anything else suspicious.

"What do we do?" Neville wondered fearfully, still whispering between the trio.

"Leave it to me." Hermione told them, somberly. She ducked down into the stairs, jogging to the other side of the pitch where the teachers, the School Governors and other important guests were. She climbed up behind the seats, just in the juncture in between the stands. Taking out her wand, she pointed it towards the Potions Professor and whispered "_hyacintho ignis_". Blue flames leaped out of her wand to land on Professor Snape's robes.

The man took two minutes before he realized that he was alighted through his sense of smell. Although, he never saw the flames since Hermione had scooped them up in a clear glass jar before fleeing the scene of the crime. The man's flaying around hit many of the spectators around him. Seeing no more flames, he assumed that he had put it out before looking straight back at his student, scared that something else had happened.

There was nothing to be worried about. Somehow, during all that commotion, Harry's broom had stopped resisting his owner. Harry relaxed for a fraction of a second, just before the Nimbus 2000 launched itself sharply once again so hard that the poor boy fell of it. Which was about quite high.

Harry tried to make his body as large as possible to slow down his descent. It would also allow someone to try and catch him. He kept falling and falling. The wind whisked around him, howling as he fell down to his doom.

Falling and falling, the tumbling feeling started from his toes, passed through his stomach and ended up out of his throat. Just before something lodged itself in his mouth like some sort fly. He had been informed that he wouldn't die, the spells would slow the young boy down before he would hit the field. But it wouldn't stop him from being extremely hurt.

Time seem to stop as Harry kept falling and falling. The feeling kept on going for eternity for Harry until Suddenly, he felt his arms being grabbed from either side. The yanking sensation hurt him, but did stop him from keeping on falling.

His saviors were the two Quidditch Captains, Marcus Flint and Oliver Wood. They had done a double-pronged attack, without saying a word, without even gesturing to each other, to stop the youngest player from tumbling to his doom. Both arms held the young boy, the two older teenagers used their legs to guide their brooms closer to one another. Marcus, being the stronger of the two, used his upper body strength to bring the Gryffindor Seeker on to the Gryffindor Keeper's broom, just before Oliver.

They grew concerned when the green-eyed, mussy black haired boy started to hack his lungs out. Continuing to cough ferociously, something golden and wet came out with a plop from Harry's mouth straight into his and Marcus' hands —the older boy was trying to keep the younger one upright, hence the reflex to mimic the others hands. It was the Golden Snitch, making that both teams won the match together. (At least, that was what Harry thought, he wasn't to sure if the win only counted if anyone caught it or if the Seeker was the only one who had to catch it to make it count. If it wasn't the case, it was a certain fact that the win would be contested.)

Oliver and Marcus flew down together towards the gathering crowd. They gave the trembling boy straight into the arms of his papa and daddy. The adreline rush had started to fade, making the courage in the child disappear to be replaced by fear.

There was still one question that everybody wanted to know: what had happened for the broom to act in such a way?

— PotS —

Harry James Bakura-Ishtar hated any type of hospitals. There was something unnatural about the place. The sense of smell that was only chemical. Those white-wash walls with the grey tiled ceiling were suppose to be soothing, but made things more depressing.

The Hospital Wing had all of those elements, except for one simple thing that brightened the place up. The large high reaching glass windows that were equally spaced everywhere in that whooping ward. Actually, if there weren't any sunlight, making the Wing dark, then it would be the perfect den for it's guardian: the fiery dragon of health, the mistress of medical practitioner in the boarding school, the well-known Matron Mama Bear of all students that could stand toe-to-toe to the Headmaster himself (and even the Minister if it would be necessary according to the rumors) … Madam Pomphry, the Head Healer and Nurse of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

That was where the young Gryffindor boy was. In one of the beds in the Den of the Dragon. Around him were his Quidditch teammates, his friends and his fathers. He had been escorted in the most Unholy of all Places (Harry would not clarify as to why he would call it that) after that traumatic event to calm down. Harry wasn't a happy camper, he did **not** like all the fussing.

Of course, he would have had a little fall from a great hight. Nothing to worry about, really.

After many well-wishing from the Quidditch team, they left him alone for the night. His fathers had left as well to go and get dinner. They left their son under the watchful eyes of his friends. That was then that another visitor came to meet Harry. Under some unfortunately circumstances.

It was Rubeus Hagrid. The gentle Half-Giant had come to see how the young boy was. It had taken him so long to go and see him since he didn't really have a good reason to do so. But, since he knew Harry's parents, Hagrid took the time to search and find some pictures of the couple.

When Hagrid walked in the Hospital Wing, he was treated to the sight of some squabbling of the foursome. Hermione was saying something about Professor Snape being the one jinxing Harry's broom. Harry, on the other hand, was getting an elevated blood pressure since he was voicing himself blue to counter-argue. According to the first year, Professor Snape may have some mean disposition towards the other students not belonging to his House, but he would never try to harm a student.

Neville had sided with Harry while Dean was with Hermione. It was interesting to see and hear.

"I read about jinxes, Harry. They have one special characteristic, you don't blink when you cast it on your enemy if he or she are in front of you. That was what Snape has done, he was staring straight at you and_ he wasn't blinking_ at all. It could only be him." For some reason, Hermione was sure that it was the Potions Professor who was the culprit.

"That's true Hermione. But that same characteristic is the exact same one for counter-jinxes. Who says that Professor Snape wasn't trying to help me? I mean, the broom wasn't trying that hard to throw me off. The effects seemed to have lessened after the first big leap."

After his talk with the dour Professor, the rapports between them seemed to have lighten up. It was a cordial, slightly frosty but still normal Teacher to Student. So it would have been a big leap for it to be said Professor.

"Of course it wouldn't have been Professor Snape." Hagrid intervened, not liking the accusations towards the older man. "He wouldn't want to harm a student."

"Thank you …" Harry trailed on, pretending that he didn't know that man at all.

"Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts. I came by here since I really wanted to talk to you." He had a nice sort of accent, making his voice gruffer than his nature was at all. "I was a friend of your parents, especially with your mother." He took something out of his back pocket. It was a blue envelope, made out of some sort of old fashioned paper. "I brought you some photos of them. Your parents' friends will be sending some others to me later in the year."

Taking the envelope with trembling hands, Harry opened it before tipping it over. Ten photos came out of it. Each of them had either a girl with beautiful red head and emerald green eyes or a boy with mussy black hair and laughing brown eyes. Both of them were students, wearing the Hogwarts' uniform with the red and gold colors belonging to his House. There were other people in the photos that Harry didn't really recognize. Well, one of them looked familiar, but Harry wasn't to sure from where.

The same green eyes as the ones in the photos started to tear up slightly. Hagrid continued on his line of the conversation. "I found them a couple of weeks ago. I wanted to give them to you for your first Quidditch Match. If you had one, it would have been a reward, if you had lost, it would have been a consolation prize."

Then, Hagrid remembered the previous content of the conversation. "So, what is this all about Professor Snape wanting to kill Harry?"

Harry was wondering the same thing. Hermione wouldn't accuse someone without some sort of proof. "Remember the right side of the third corridor that was forbidden in the beginning of the year?" The boys nodded at her. "Well, during October, I got the lost and saw this locked door. It was pretty easy to open it with a simple Alohoroma Spell. When I entered the door, I came face-to-face with a three-headed dog. Then a couple of days before today, I came to the Teachers' Lounge to speak with Professor Flitwick. But he wasn't there when I came, but Professor Snape was, trying to bandage his leg muttering about some dog and to many heads to keep track of. The Cerberus is guarding something important under the trapdoor."

Harry had to admit it to Hermione, she did do her research.

"So you met Fluffy?" Hagrid got involved once again in the conversation.

"Fluffy? Is that it's name?" You could hear the incredulity in her voice. How could such a vicious looking animal have such a cute name?

"Yeah, bought him from this Greek chap down in the pub. I lent him to Dumbledore to guard the …" Hagrid finally caught himself from telling to much. But it wasn't any use, the four kids were hooked by that little piece of information. "No, I am not saying anything else. What Fluffy is guarding is only between Headmaster Dumbledore and his friend, Nicholas Flamel."

The last name was interesting for Harry. Nothing was shown on his face, it was to interesting to see the reaction on his friends' faces at the little dangling hook of a mystery. Harry decided that pursuing this mystery wasn't worth antagonizing Hagrid by following up on the trail of questions. "Of course Hagrid. We didn't mean to pry. It's just so fascinating wondering what was behind that door. It's obvious that you wouldn't say anything to compromise Professor Dumbledore's trust."

It was the right thing to say as Hagrid puffed his chest, proud of the compliment. "Anyway, take care of yourself, Harry. Make sure that any of you four go looking for more behind private affairs."

The four _innocently_ nodded. As of matter of fact, they were the perfect students one could expect from them.

Hagrid left them, happy that things went his way. Since it was nearly night time, Harry's trio of friends left to get back to their dorm. His papa, his daddy and his father had come back to stay the night with him. They weren't about to stay away from their son after an attack.

Papa-Ryo was in the same bed as his son, keeping him safe in the warmth of his arms. Daddy-Marik had taken a chair next to the bed, quite a comfortable one to boot. Father-Aapep did what any good patriarch would do. That is to say take a position in a dark corner to be on the lookout for any follow up assassination. Even if it wouldn't happen — a good assassination plan would never allow for a second attempt. It a second attempt was to be made, you would have to wait for some time until the target would lower his or her defense suspicion, thus his or her defense. —, there was still a possibility that the killer could come back.

The Shadows would never forget, nor would it forgive. The assassin better be careful, he had a bigger foe to face.

— PotS —

Christmas time was a particular festive affair for the Bakura-Ishtar-Kaiba family. It would start on the first of December with Mokuba Kaiba giving his favorite nephews a count-down calendar up until the white, full of presents, day of Christmas. Those calendars were special since they were hand-made with the presents being different than the usual candies and chocolate. Then, on Christmas Eve, he would give his nephews a different sort of calendar up until New Year.

It was one of the best months of the year, at least for Harry it was.

The month also brought a beautiful scenery to Hogwarts. The Great Lake that could be seen had turned a frozen blue jewel that would glitter under the golden sunlight, enhanced by the bright clear blue sky that was decorated with a few fluffy white clouds.

In spite of that, it wasn't all that made the scenery such a beauty. No, it was the snowy white landscape that encapsulated the surroundings. By mid-December, you could see the twins playing pranks on everyone that were foolish to be in their way.

Even the Professors weren't spared of their jokes. Poor Professor Quarrel was the usual recipient of some magicked snowballs that bounced on his purple turban. A fascinating object that smelled like some sort of foul garlic originating from it. The worse thing was that nobody knew as to why the Professor was wearing it in the first place. Some would say that it was a gift from an African Prince when the stammering Professor had saved the man from a man zombie. The latter being unconvincing since the man in question couldn't even stop a troll. Let's not forget that he was afraid of his own shadow. Another rumor was that he was hiding his grayed hair from his meeting from the vampire after his life. That same vampire that was the cause for the smell coming from the turban: a protective pungent protection.

A third rumor that circulated in the grapevines — one that most people took as joke rumor —, was that in the back of the Defense Against the Dark Art's head was another head as well. Making him a two-faced Professor.

Which could be kind of funny if it wasn't completely untrue.

Leaving this double-sided mystery alone, let us come back to the event of mid-December where the School Holidays were about to begin.

It was a very eager Harry and Co that were ready to leave the dreary Castle. Don't get him wrong. The interior decorations were fascinating, but over three quarters were very cold. The Common Rooms and Great Hall were roaring with fierce fires, burning bright and giving heat. This contrasted with the drafty cold corridors that ran to everywhere. The latter rivaling the icicle situation of the Dungeons for the unaware.

If you hadn't bundled up enough, the Potions classes would bring out the trembling chills that could even outmatch the fear of the Potions Professor. Not one class passed by without at least ninety five percent of the students putting their hands as close to the fires that they would under the bubbling cauldrons.

As the train brought the load full of students back to London and into the arms of missed family, the quarterly four were discovering their recent — if you could consider two weeks recent — discovery and important research from the name that Hagrid had uttered. They were trying to find out who could tell them who the man was, without letting it be known why they were researching him.

That was when Harry had learned one of the most horrifying secret that he had ever known in his whole life. It trumped the fact that there were even more evil things, hidden beneath the surface of what we call life.

Hermione Jean Granger came from a dangerous line of people. They could torture and kill, without getting caught. Actually, they were even be aided by the law to supply their long line of test subjects. The Grangers, from many generations since the job existed, were … **DENTISTS!** What trumped everything was that they were **British Dentists** that were barely out rivaled by **Russian Dentists.**

Ever since that sentence, Harry swore to himself to never, ever in any way, shape or even form, to cross the young girl. Looking at Dean, it would seem that he had come to the same conclusion. All that they need to do was inform poor, naive, innocent Neville of the most horrifying, the most shocking DNA that resided in their only female presence.

Come to think of it, Harry would have to spread rumors so that none of the Purebloods got any idea to bother the girl. All of the Muggleborns and Muggle raised Half-Bloods would stay clear from her ire once they have seen the light from the truth.

It was a heavy burden, thought and destiny to bear for anyone.

Apart from that, everyone hugged each other before wishing a Merry Christmas. It was a time for family, friends and loved ones to be gathered around a table full of food. It was a time to share presents.

It was also the Junior Division Winter Tournament that was to be held during those three weeks of Holiday.

Harry Bakura-Ishtar was going to rock the World with his new deck.

The only question was, who would be brave and foolish enough to mock him before being utterly, completely and thoroughly defeated by the reining Champion of two years in a row? The Ward of the King of Games and the rest of the Court?

Who would be brave enough to face him in a duel for the Final Position of the Winter Duel Monsters and Magic Tournament?

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**An: A special encouragement to a fellow Nanowriter: Dragon Silhouette, yamiyugi23 and all the others who are doing the challenge. Hope they'll all do well this year. I'm rooting for them as they are encouraging me as well.**

**Sorry about the Dentists jokes, I just met it like a bit of fun.  
**

**The Bluebell flame spell is of my own invention. We do not know the proper incantation. Hence why I used the latin words for "blue flame".  
**

**See you at the next chapter where you will finally see Harry's deck in action. All cards belong to me (apart from 4-5 of them). It took me time to create that deck but you'll see why it is so special.  
**


	8. Interlude: The Court and Its Functions

**AN: Here is a little explanation of the Court. I'm still at a blank page for the new chapter.  
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**Hope you guys like what I did. (This is the part where I really deviate from Esama's story).  
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**Disclaimer for any chapters: I don't own anything. (There, it's done).  
**

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**Interlude: The Court and its functions**

In the world of Duel Monsters, there were Duelists and then there were _Duelists_. Ordinary Duelists would buy their cards, duel one another and generally treat it like a game. Nothing really out of the ordinary.

Then, there were _Duelists_ that had entered the world of Duel Monster in a very different manner. They were the ones who knew perfectly well that Duel Monster wasn't just any sort of game. They were also the ones that were much more powerful than the regular duelists. You would be too if your own cards talked to you as well, forging a better bond between the two of you.

In the midst of those Duelists, you had the cream of the crop, the best of the best, the ones that regulated everything in the Dueling World. Everyone knew about them since they were the best, nearly never loosing a duel except between them. They were the Court of Duel Monsters in the Real World or the Shadow Court for those having an extra ability. Actually, they were mostly known as the Court for shorter and more encompassing reasons.

The Court in itself, for the average duelist, was the top thirteen duelists in the World. Each had a nickname according to their position, just like Royalty. It was the other side of things where reality explained things a little more.

First thing that must be said is that, despite its name as the Shadow Court, it was divided into two factions: The Light faction — led by the Consort — and the Dark — led by the Pharaoh. They made sure that the balance between Light and Dark _within_ the Shadows themselves. To that point, each person at the Court had a counterpart.

If you belonged to the Shadow Court, then you knew what each person represented as well as their functions.

The first two people that had to be described were the Pharaoh and his Consort. Both of them were the reigning champions of Duel Monsters with the Pharaoh being the face of the first ranking. The Pharaoh, or Atem Muto as the mass known him as, ruled the Darker Side of the Court. He was the one who judged and made decisions about his subjects. He was the face of the Court.

His Consort, on the other hand, was his husband — like the name implied — Yugi Muto. He was the one in charge of the Light side of things. It was his duty to make sure that any and all administrative affairs were in order. Festival preparations, State Dinners for the various leaders, even the birthday parties were under his domain. He was the ruler of those that followed the lighter aspects of the Dark.

The next person in the Chain of Command — if circumstances made it so the Pharaoh and Consort were incapacitated — was the Vizir, Seto Kaiba. He was the advisor of the Pharaoh, more in tuned with the legal affairs of the Dark Side of things. He made sure that all financial aspects were in order as well as all secondary administrative affairs.

His counterpart was the Priest, the one who prayed to all of the Gods to shed some light of things. Of course, you had to come from a long line of Tomb Guardians to have that privilege. That was the heritage of Marik Bakura-Ishtar. He was the fourth in line for the throne, or the second in command for the Light.

If you continue on, were the Entertainers, in pairs as always. Representing the shady aspects of keeping a guest occupied, Mai Valentine was the perfect girl to do so. After being in the Business for very long, Mai knew what and who could charm a man or a woman to get what they so desired for the Court. Her lighter and more naive counterpart was Téa Gardner, also known as the Dancer. She was the more the image of the Entertainment, making the shining light of the entertainment seem magical.

Just don't let the two females fool you with the '_frivolous_' position. They could still attack and defend at a minutes notice, all of this while installing fear to them.

The next two that belonged to the Court were the protectors, its Defenders both in physical and mystical sense of ways. Starting from the Dark Side of the Court, you had Isis Kaiba née Ishtar, the Priestess and Warrior-Priestess of the Court. With her prayers, the wrath of the Gods fueled by her Invocations and Magics, their enemies were doomed to a life full of despair if they dared to attack. Tristan Taylor was the Guard who was ready for the physical attacks that he could defend.

Concerning the none threatening two others were the Merchant and the Tutor. The Merchant, someone that was very successful in business, the number two in the financial world, Maximillion Pegasus, was the one to bring the money to the Court. All businesses past through him, in the Shadowy Domain. It would be ironic that he was part of the Light.

On the other hand, the saying "**knowledge is power**" was very much applied to Mokuba Kaiba, the Tutor of the Court. With what he gained by teaching others made him a very powerful foe in the strategic department. Once a plan had been formulated by him, with all the information he could gain, it was full proof. That didn't mean he was infallible with his intellectual capacity.

Finally, the last two that mirrored each other were part of the Darker Side of both the Light and Dark were the Assassin and the Spy. The Spy belonged to the Light, as well as being the best friend of the Consort, went by the name of Joey Wheeler. Despite his boisterous personality, what with his yellow hair and crazy devil may car actions, the man was one of the most discrete people one could meet. Slipping through the defenses in plain daylight, Joey could bring back any secrets that he was ordered to find and steal.

The Assassin was the one who dirtied his hands despite the fact that it was nearly the same job as the Spy. Those that grew to powerful with their Shadow Powers, making them to cocky, thus not obeying the principles of the Shadows. If they decided to try and use their powers for their personal gain, then Aapep Bakura-Ishtar would be the last face they would see in the moonless and starless night.

Only two people were Neutral in this Kingdom of Mysteries and Twilight: the Librarian and the Ward. The former, Ryo Bakura-Ishtar, was more partial to the Light rather than the Dark, but all the Knowledge that he acquired (even more so than Mokuba who was more of a warrior than a scholar like Ryo) made him stay as Neutral as possible. That way, his future descendants in this position, wouldn't choose between Light and Dark, just in case things devolved in the Court.

The other Neutral Party was the position of the Ward. Rarely given, this position had some serious guidelines to be fulfilled before allowing someone to take up the title.

The first rule was that any person could take the title even if someone else already have. It is actually the name of a group, not of an individual.

The second rule was that the person eligible for the title of the Ward had to have Shadow Magic to even join the Court.

The third rule was that a person could claim the title of the Ward if he or she were under the age of sixteen and had no direct living relative, or so to speak.

The third rule was that the Ward must have at least a distant relationship to someone in the Court, as well as being introduced by the one who found that person.

The fourth rule was the Pharaoh must be the one to to allow the allocation of the Ward, that is to say the title and all of what it would bring. His decision is final, there would be no change unless the Ward breaks a major rule of the Court.

The fifth and final rule is that the Ward is to remain Neutral until he reaches the age of majority — depending on his nationality — where he would choose whom he would serve. What should be kept in mind is that Balance must be maintained between the two factions, so there should be an equal number of people serving the Dark side of the Court than those serving the Light side of the Court.

— Interlude: the Break Line of all Break Lines to be —

Keep in mind that this was only a brief known description of the Court. There were still many inexplicable duties that the Gods would reveal in time and place. Even the Pharaoh and his Consort were not aware of the full job description that was the Court.

Ma'at, the Egyptian Goddess of Order and Justice, was the main Deity that presided over the Court. It was a gift from Ra to balance out the growing numbers of users in the Lost Arts of Shadow Magic — that both Osiris and Seth had created together once before the traitorous actions of one of the brothers towards another. She is one of the Oldest Deities in existence, at the same level as the Greek Sisters of Fates, the Nordic Daughters of Time or even World-Turtle that exists in African lore and legends.

The Court is her way to keep in check the wayward Dark Arts from Egypt, but also to prevent the Image, Thread, Wheel or Loom of Time to be Gone, Destroyed or Utterly Erased.

The Court was Her Excuse to go into Lands of her Foreign Counterparts, not as an the Egyptian Ambassador of her Pantheon, but as herself.

The Older Ones were excused of many things. Breaking the rules was one of them.

For, as Time and Space diverse from one another (bringing into context the complex theory of multiple universes — another story for another time and place —.), the Court was not meant to be. It is only a complex factor at the Crossroads of Possibilities for one Universe to go in one particular Direction.

After all, this story is only fiction for the one who believes it to be.

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******An: So what did you guys think? I really needed to write something and this little thing appeared. Not to complicated to understand?**

**A special encouragement to a fellow Nanowriter: Dragon Silhouette, yamiyugi23 and all the others who are doing the challenge. Hope they'll all do well this year. I'm rooting for them as they are encouraging me as well.**

**Next chapter will really be the Duel where you'll see how come Harry knows about the name Nicholas Flamel when he hadn't read the Chocolate card about Dumbledore.  
**


	9. Chapter 7: I and ER of the WDMMT

**AN: So, here is the first part of the new chapter. I thought that you guys would want a piece of the Tournament. Next chapter will be more actioned packed with our beloved Childrens' Card Game.  
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**The first Duel would seem a little to perfect, but I hadn't really planned this one like I will for the next 4 others. So, please excuse the little Garry Stu moment. It won't happen again.  
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**As you can see, Harry's theme for this deck would be a bit obvious. A little reference to another series that I liked when I was young (Shocking to go take from a rival anime!) and that's all concerning this chapter.  
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**Reviews, as always, makes me a very happy girl. =)  
**

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**Chapter 7: Introduction and Elimination Round of the WDMMT (or The Winter Duel of Monsters and Magic Tournament)**

The Winter Duel of Monsters and Magic Tournament was one of the two biggest events of the year. An international Tournament, where only the best were allowed to come through an invitation, the elimination style rounds started on the very first day of the holidays all over England.

The real Tournament was to be held from the 28th to the 30th of December in a randomly picked Country, then with the Dartboard of Decision was used to choose the area where it would be held. The thrower of the dart, thus the one who would bestow the honor of hosting such a Tournament, was the winner of the Summer Duel Monsters and Magic Tournament. (Vice-versa for when the dart would be thrown for the Summer Tournament.)

During those three days, thirty-two duelists would be pit against one another for the glory of winning. There was also the title of the Oak King (the Summer title was the Willow King) as well as a hefty sum of money. The notoriety of the win made it quite a big win.

The date for the Summer Duel Monsters and Magic Tournament was the 28th to the 30th of June. It had the same prestige as the Winter Duel Monsters and Magic Tournament with the exception of having more participants and its category of tag-team duels.

In fact, you could compare those annual Tournaments like the Olympic Games, since these Tournaments brought tourists to the area where it was hosted, the same fame and the same glory as those Greek Games that came every four years.

This year, the 27th annual Winter Duel Monsters and Magic Tournament was to be held in France, in a small city not far from Paris (about 45 minutes by car or 30 minutes by train) called Reims. It was famous for its champagne and its magnificent Notre-Dame Church where many French kings had been anointed. It was a beautiful little town, just right for those wanting to Duel in the open air.

— PotS —

The Hogwarts Express had arrived at London at the end of the 20th of December. There was barely a night of rejoice before the very next day, the whole Bakura-Ishtar family went for the Big Ben Square to participate in the elimination rounds for the Winter Tournament.

There were two divisions for the Tournament: the Junior division (for those between the age of six and eighteen) and the Senior division (for those that were sixteen and above). Harry, despite the fact that he really didn't like it, was signed up for the Junior Division once again. Aapep and Marik signed up for the Senior category, just for a little bit of fun.

The Square was packed with people under the barely visible rays of the eight o'clock rising sun. The sky was of the clear bright blue variety in the crispy cold air. A perfect day for the first duels to be. The first two day was reserved for entering the Tournament as well as the Junior's elimination rounds. The next three days were only for the Adults Division (there were quite a bit more people who entered that category). The 26th and 27th were days off where people celebrated Christmas, letting also people organize their trip for Reims.

Harry was bouncing up and down on enthusiastically. The excitement was getting to him. He was part of the first group that were to duel. Knowing that a dueling outfit was needed — it was like a signature of the person —, Harry had decided on this year's outfit. Just like his decks, Harry had a hard time decided what his signature outfit would be.

Take the Pharaoh and his Consort, they were renowned for their leather style with a quantity of silver chains hanging from everywhere on their bodies. Even being around the age of thirty, they could still pull it off quite well.

Harry's father, Aapep, was known to wear dark colors. Usually a long-sleeved black shirt, with only four buttons, dark grey jeans and dark brown Italian loafers. To complete the assembly, Aapep would wear a dark leather trench coat that would float near his feet. This highlighted his long white spiky hair while making his skin a ghostly pale skin tone that it was certainly not. Harry thought that his father was, altogether, a dashing figure when he dueled. His opponents, on the other hand, were already frightened out of their wits when they saw him. Which didn't help when they faced his Zombies from his deck.

Harry's Daddy, in reverse to his father, went for more neutral type of color. His outfit was more of a sleeveless (if it was warm) dark beige shirt with some light brown dress pants. At his feet were brown leather boots, that were mainly hidden by the pants. To complete the outfit was a black Fedora, making him, in all respects, a very distinguished person.

It was to bad that Harry's papa had left the Dueling Scene a couple of years ago. Five years to be more precise. Ryo had wanted to be more of a stay at home parent so that Harry would get all the love he could need. Although, there had been rumors of a meekly looking man, dressed a bit like a nerd with his much to large white sweatshirts, light grey pants and grey sneakers, that was a devastating opponent. He had earned the nickname of the White Death. Surely it couldn't have been his Papa-Ryo, right?

Which would bring us back to Harry's own outfit. This year Harry had decided to go in with a simple outfit that would reflect his deck's theme, while reflecting his House colors. Due to the fact that the temperature circled around the 0 degrees Celsius this early in the morning, thus acknowledging a warmer afternoon, Harry went for a two-layers outfit. The first layer was a simple white t-shirt that would peak out from his rufous colored — a sort of reddish brownish type of color— sweater. Impressed in the back, with a bright gold to be visible, was a stick with two serpents intertwined around it. The Caduceus, as it was called, was both a medical symbol — what it was most known for — and as an _alchemic symbol_. He wore, for the bottom half of his body, dark blue jeans with a brown belt and black sneakers. To complete the look, he had a scarf with large red and gold stripes that matched his red fingerless wool gloves where golden thread was weaved inside to form the elemental star on the back.

His opponent of the hour was an older boy with mousy yellow hair that framed a very freckled face with dark brown eyes. He was taller than Harry, however the boy was at the same time very lanky. The clothes that he wore were similar to a character from a television show that Harry had watched once a long time ago. The dark haired boy thought the show might have been called Pokemon, if memory served him well. And that the character that the boy was imitating in the style department was called, of this Harry was very sure, Ash Ketchum. That meant that the boy was wearing light blue jeans, red and white sneakers with matching cap, a dark t-shirt and a blue vest that had white short sleeves to it.

Around them, other battles were being set up with other children, ranging from young to older teenagers. This was London where everyone in the United Kingdom who wanted to participate in the Winter Duel Monsters and Magic Tournament had gathered today.

The rules for the first round of elimination were simple enough. Each participant had been assigned to a group that ranged from the letter A to P. The number amidst those groups varied while still remaining an even number of contestants. Each group would then take turns on the square to fight in a sort of Battle Royal style. The duels were one on one, but anyone could challenge anyone. Once a duel has been engaged, then nobody could intervene. On top of that, the looser of the duel had to leave the 'arena'. You only had one chance in this Tournament, if you lost it, you would have to wait for the Summer one in six months or the Winter one in twelve months time.

Harry had only stood in one spot, letting his opponent come to him. He was known in the Dueling World but not that famous for his prowess in dueling. In reality, most of Harry's fame came from his family. Having only entered the Dueling Arena for three years, more seriously for the last year, Harry had the greatest advantage of looking young, inexperienced, and generally overlooked. His cousin Satoshi had the same home court advantage as he did.

So of course, the older boy with the bad cosplay idea of a show imitating Duel Monsters would strut over to what he thought was one of the weakest links. An easy win but not for the person who thought it would be. At least the older 'bully' — he wasn't really mean and who wouldn't choose the best strategical maneuver to stay in this tournament? — had the decency to introduce himself politely.

"My name is Harris LeGrange. Would you agree to a Duel between the two of us?" Harris was at a respective distant for a possible duel, not to far, nor was he was to close to be crowded.

Harry shrugged. "If you want to. My name is Harry Ishtar-Bakura. Please to make your acquaintance."

"No, no, the pleasure is mine. I was looking for some fun, you just fit the profile."

They activated their duel disks, right after they had shuffled their decks and put their cards in them. Through the game of rock-paper-scissors, they choose who would start first. That would be Harris, since his paper defeated Harry's rock.

**Harris' Life Points: 6000**

**Harry's Life Points: 6000**

Each boy drew five cards. Harry hid his smile of glee at the excellent hand he choose.

Harris shouted "Draw" as he took his sixth card from the top of his deck. His predatorily smile was a bit creepy, or so to speak. "Perfect. I summon **Elektric Mouse** in Attack Mode." The hologram of a big brown mouse with lightning like light grey whiskers that matched his long tail that was also shaped like a lightening rod. It hoped from side to side a couple of times before staying in one place, tail still waiving happily.

**Elektric Mouse is a four-star monster card with 1600 attack points and 1200 defense points. He has no effects.**

"I equip it with **Lightening Rod** to raise his attack points. I place a card face down and end my turn."

**Lightening Rod is a magic equip card that raises a thunder-type monster by 300 attack points.**

"All right," Harry acknowledged, "then I'll draw." He took the card on top of deck. "Let's start off with a little devil. Come on out **Mephisto** in attack mode." Out from the white light of the hologram apparition came a devilish black-haired man with ruby-red eyes in a black tuxedo suit and a blood-red tie. His attire was completed with shining black dress shoes. Taking off his black top hat, the devil bowed to his opponent that tried to spark him.

**Mephisto is a four-star monster card with 1800 attack points and 1200 defense points. He has no effects.**

"Then, I'll equip him with** Devil's Charm**." A silver cane came into sight of the spectators that had gathered around the duel.

**Devil's charm is a magic equip card that raises Mephisto's attack by 700 points and his defense by 300 points.**

Harry was a very happy duelist. "Let's see how your mouse will face against my devil. Mephisto, attack." The devil was very happy at the order. Disappearing from where he stood, he suddenly re-appeared just in front of the brown mouse who squeaked in surprise. The silver cane that was in Mephisto's hand was used to attack Elektric Mouse hard. In a shower of sparks and lights, the mouse disappeared from the arena.

Mephisto teleported back to his original place, the smirk was much to happy.

"I should thank you for destroying my monster. The lose of points were worth this trap. I activate **Vendetta**. This allows me to special summon my** Elektric Mouse King**." The hologram of the previous mouse, in a much larger version and with a golden band that circled his head, came onto the field. It loomed over Mephisto, sparks flew around the monster to scare him. A visible full-body shiver was seen on Mephisto as the devil grimaced distastefully.

**Vendetta is a trap card that activates when an Elektric Mouse is sent to the graveyard. It allows the player to special summon Elektric Mouse King from the deck or hand.**

**Elektric Mouse King is a seven-star monster card with 28000 attack points and 26000 defense points. If there is another Elektric Mouse on the field, then no magic or trap card can effect him directly.**

Harry scowled at the slight setback from the trap card. He was expecting a different kind of trap card. Well, all plans couldn't work the way you wanted. "Well, well, looks like you weren't just all talk and no brain. I place two face-downs and end my turn."

**Harris' Life Points: 5400**

**Harry's Life Points: 6000**

Harris ignored the intended insult. "I draw a new card. Then, I summon another Elektric Mouse." The previous brown mouse came back in the field. "I also equip another Lightening Rod to my Elektric Mouse King, making that his attack points higher than ever before. This makes me the king of the duel. So, say goodbye to your Mephisto." With one over-exaggerated wave of hand, Harris pointed at the red-eyed devil of a man. "Attack my majestic Elektric Mouse King. Avenge your fallen subject."

The elephantine brown crown-wearing mouse started to run towards a cowering black-haired red-eyed in a tuxedo devil. His hands were crossed with the silver cane used as some sort of feeble shield. As the Mouse-King prepared to shock his way into revenge, when the devil stood up with an eerie smiling face.

The Mouse-King didn't stop his attack, even though it frowned at the change of emotion of his victim. It stopped a few steps aways before launching a lightning bolt just to be on the safe side.

Mephisto brought up his silver cane to point it towards the bolt, letting it go the cane stood afloat. The silver turned to purple before getting larger and fatter. Then it separated into a similar cylinder. The first cylinder received the yellow bolt that was about to kill Mephisto. The second cylinder spit out the thunderbolt straight towards a very shocked —pardon the pun — Harris LeGrange.

"Oh my, looks like your little mouse has turned onto its master. That must have been a shock to the heart." Harry mocked his opponent. "No what will you do now?"

**Magic Cylinders is a magic card that activates when an opponent's monster declares an attack. This card negates the attack. If that is done, you can inflict damage to your opponent equal to its ATK.**

Harris growled at the younger boy. "Fine then, I put my Elektric Mouse in defense mode and end my turn."

**Harris' Life Points: 2300.**

**Harry's Life Points: 6000**

Harry started to jump lightly on his feet. "Then it's my turn then." He drew a new card from his deck. "This card I just got, you are good as gone from this Tournament. First off, I summon **Water's Homunculus**, the lovely Unda, in attack mode."

On the left of Mephisto, a lovely blue-haired woman with green eyes appeared. She had pointy ears and three small aquamarine dots in a shape of a triangle on her forehead. Her attire, a bright sea-color toga with matching sandals, contrasted with the somber tuxedo. Mephisto gave gallantly his arm to Unda, who put a delicate white arm at the crook of his elbow.

**Water's Homunculus is a three-star monster card with 1000 attack points and 1400 defense points. If her counterpart "Earth's Homunculus" is on the field, then they bestow 300 Life Points at every Main Phase of the player.**

"Next, I activate my other face-down, a personal favorite of mine which is **Celestial Call**." The card on the field came up while it was brightly lit. An ivory white bungle came out. A melodious melody of many trumpets was heard. The devil started to glow red all around him. "You see, this card effects depend on if Mephisto is on the field, his rival slash friend, Raphael, or both. As you can see, only Mephisto on the field. This allows him to attack twice, the second time with only half of his original attack points."

**Celestial Call is a trap card whose effects vary depending on if Mephisto, Raphael or both is on the field. When Mephisto is on the field, he can attack twice per turn. The second turn allows him to attack directly the Life Points of your opponent with half of the Attack points. This card can only stay on the field for three turns before it is destroyed.**

"Finally, I play my final card in my hand. It's one of my papa's favorites, so say hello to my magical card **Change of Heart**."

On the arena, a beautiful female divine being appeared in a show of lights. Half of her was like an angel with milky feathered wings while the other half was like a devil with black batty wings. In her hands was a heart that was exactly divided into two with light and dark colors. She smiled at the couple that were her allies before flying towards the biggest of the two opponents.

**Change of Heart is a magic card whose effects targets one monster your opponent controls. It takes control of that monster until the End Phase.**

Elektric Mouse King went towards Harry's side of the field. His eyes were glazed like he was dazed.

Harris LeGrange swallowed at the situation. He was completely and utterly screwed. In front of him, his opponent was looking like a little angel, with that sweet baby smile of his, coupled by those sparkling eyes, morphed into this cruel statue of an avenging divine being.

Those red lips with plump baby-face cheeks opened to utter his death sentence. "Mephisto why don't you first attack Elektric Mouse, please."

The incarnation of the devil nodded happily, withdrew his arm from Unda before dashing towards the brown electrical mouse. Raising his silver cane, he slammed it down on top of his adversary's head. The mouse disappeared in a shower of sparks and lights.

"Then, it's Unda's turn to attack you directly." The elfin woman raised an arm, her palm in motion of 'stop'. A water ball formed itself. With an elegant sweeping motion, she 'rolled' her watery ball towards the fair hair figure, as if she was throwing a bowling ball. Harris tried to protect himself with his arms crossed against the tidal wave. Even if it didn't hurt, the psychological effect was devastating.

**Harris Life Points: 1300**

**Harry's Life Points: 6000**

"To conclude this match, I will defeat you with your very own monster. Go Elektric Mouse King, defeat your master!"

The giant Mouse-King scampered towards his former master, sparks all around him. Just at the last second, the monster turned around to his tail, fully charged of electricity, to deal a devastating blow.

**Harris Life Points: 0**

**Harry's Life Points: 6000**

The duel was over in barely twenty minutes, without Harry loosing a single life point at all. It was not only rare event, but also a sign of good fortune, that his very first match in the Duel turned out like this.

The spectators, who had gathered around to watch, burst into applause at the one in a kind duel that have ever seen. Harry was jumping up and down of joy, under the proud gaze of his fathers. Well, more like under the proud gaze of two of his parents and the more neutral — barely hidden behind was the proud gaze that only those that were close would have noticed — gaze of his father.

Harry threw himself in the arms of his papa. It was a fantastic win after all. Even for the Court standards.

A new opponent then approached the younger boy for a duel. She had seen the crowd that had gathered. She wanted a challenge, something that made her want to continue dueling. To want to progress, to reach new levels. So, if a crowd burst into applause at the young boy — she wasn't to sure how old he was — than that was an excellent indication for a good duel.

She went up to him to introduce herself and continue on her journey as a duelist.

— PotS —

Reims was a beautiful city under the winter season. Calm, quiet, but still an important tourist attraction for the country of France. Its main attraction is his tall Cathedral Notre-Dame where many Catholic French Kings had been anointed.

Another tourist attraction was the fact that the city had been selected as the host for the 27th annual Winter Duel Monsters and Magic Tournament. The hotels were packed to the brink, inside and outside of the city. Some of the inhabitants even loaned their spare rooms at prices higher than the markets, but it was worth the expense. As anyone could have told you, despite being held twice a year, Duel Monsters and Magic Tournament was a big event.

Those that had qualified for the final event didn't had to worry about accommodations for them and their family. Since it was only a two hour train ride by the Eurostar, by the end of the 25th, the Bakura-Ishtar family was already on their way to their Hotel in Reims to spend Christmas Eve. Just so that they could have a good two days of holidays before the main Event.

Christmas was one of the best holidays that the family celebrated — despite the fact that it was a catholic holiday and not a pagan one. When Harry had celebrated his very first Christmas with his new family after his adoption, he was very surprised to have received any type of presents. The Dursleys had pounded into his head that he was a very bad boy who was on the Scrooges list, not Santa's.

Somehow, his Daddy had knew what he was going through. When he had saw the overwhelmed expression from his new son, Marik had gently guided Harry out of the living room and into the kitchen for a little discussion. It was about nine to ten months since Harry's living situation had changed. So it was perfectly natural that he still had some lingering aftereffect. A good hot coco, a serious discussion and a gentle hug with a kiss on the nose helped things a lot. Barely an hour later, Harry had rejoined a worried Ryo and a neutral Aapep to open up his presents and enjoy a very merry day.

Nowadays, the only two lingering effects of his stay at the Dursleys were actually some very cute quirks. The first one was always the little surprise expression that would always show quickly on Harry's face. Every time, without fail, he saw that there were some presents for him under the tree. The other was how he would never rip the paper of his presents, but carefully take it off before putting it neatly in a pile.

This year, it was a particular festive event since his Cousin had also qualified for the Junior Division, thus the whole Bakura-Ishtar-Kaiba family had gathered in one of the rooms to exchange their gifts.

There were the usual presents handmade presents from Harry's parents: a knife from his father, a knitted scarf from his papa, a new toy that his daddy had made for him to better harness his shadow magic. Then there were those from his Uncle Mokuba — usually some sort of book —, the joint present from his Uncle Seto and Aunt Isis — some money that was put into his bank account or some rare cards that could interest him— and a handmade present from his Cousin Satoshi — usually a card.

In return, Harry had gifted some cool gadgets for thievery to his father, some joke items for his daddy and some magical wool for his papa — it changed colors according to the mood of the knitter which stayed once it was knitted together.

For his Uncle Seto, he had bought a series of books explaining the political mouvements of the British Wizarding World, the Laws and the Economic effects so that his beloved Uncle could bring in some business in a new market. His Aunt got a book on ritual summon demons and monsters from the past — it was more like a joke rather than a real 'dark' kind of book. As for Satoshi, it was a storybook that wizarding children read.

His Uncle Mokuba got _Hogwarts a History the Golden Deluxe Version_ that was very well received.

He had sent his friends their gifts a couple of days ago. Dean and Harry had gotten a joint present for a rulebook, a started deck and some boost packets for Neville just to see if he would get hooked on the game. They also added some Chocolate Frogs and Bertie Bots Every Flavor Bean.

Dean got a signed autograph from the King of Games with a one year subscription to the magazine _Duelists and Duels_, the number one magazine on Duel Monsters.

Hermione got some sugar-free candies with a book on old wizard lore and legends. He didn't know her that well to really know what she wanted.

In return, Harry had received some cool presents from them. Hermione had sent him a very large box of chocolate frogs. Her note said that "since you like cards so much, here is another collection to start. Merry Christmas Harry." Dean had sent him four card packs that were one step above the normal ones. The cards he received were added to his cards reserve. Neville had sent him a book about etiquette in the high end society, especially for the Noble Houses, like the Potters.

Then, as they continued on their merriment, Satoshi spotted another package under the tree. "Hey Harry, there is another present for you." Harry picked it up. It was wrap in some coarse brown paper with a thick string to it. It was also very light. A card was attached to it with the writing in big loopy letters: "_Harry Potter, your father left this in my possession before he died. It is time it was returned to you. Use it well. A Very Merry Christmas to you._"

Harry was puzzled at the package. "Do any of you know where this package came from?" How did a strange package get through the hotel security? On top of that, they didn't know in which room they would celebrate Christmas? It was only until last night that the whole clan decided to go celebrate Christmas morning at the Bakura-Ishtar hotel room.

"May I, Harry?" Isis asked her nephew while extending a hand for the packet. Vestige of powers from the Millennium Necklace, she could feel the intention of the previous handler of the package from the residues. If they had nefarious intentions towards anyone related to her, she would feel it without any problem.

Harry padded towards her over the thick brown carpet. As she received the mysterious present, Isis was bombarded with only positive emotions. Regret from something lost, parental love towards her nephew, something else like sorrow and time that passed. "It's alright. You can open it Harry. I think its a heirloom from your birth father."

Harry opened the package. A material fluid and silvery gray went slithering to the floor where it lay in gleaming folds. Another note was pinned to it. In that same big loopy writing were the words: "_This was your father's inheritance for you on Christmas Eve. It is known as an Invisibility Cloak. Take good care of it._"

Reverently, Harry picked up the cloak before sitting down on his Papa's legs. On either side were his father and his daddy, just there for the emotional gift. After a couple of minutes, Harry smiled and kissed each of his parents cheek. "You guys are my parents. This is a heritage from my birth dad that I have never seen. You guys are there for me."

The emotional situation got broken by eight years old Satoshi Kaiba. "So, why don't you try it on? See if it really turns your invisible." Only his youthful exuberance could have broken the mood so effectively. Everybody laughed while Harry complied.

After putting on his father's cloak around his shoulders, only Harry's head stayed 'afloat' in the air. The two cousins shared a grin at the potential pranks that could be planned. The adults shared a look on top of the children's heads. They would have to be kept on their toes, even if the probability of their children playing a practical joke during a very important tournament. After, yes, but during, never.

The ambience returned to its festive tunes. They family went to eat breakfast together, ready for the two days of rest before they would face against their opponents. If they won their next two matches each, they would face against each other in the semi-finals.

But for now, they were cousins that meant family. Family, for the Bakura-Ishtar-Kaiba clan, meant everything. It transcended any rivalry, any internal squabble that could be. They were united as one, and as one they would remain.

For that family, you messed with one of them, you messed with all of them. Seeing the money, reputation and power that the Bakura-Ishtars and the Kabas wielded _separately_, you could say that it was quite a lot.

* * *

**AN: So, what did you guys think of my little duel? Right off the bat, I know that it is a little bit Gary Stu (or to perfect). But it won't happen again to the other four duels that are coming up in the next chapter. So stay tune for the second part.**


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